by Fay Weldon
Alexandra left the house and drove the half mile to Vilna’s place. Vilna lived in a small mansion in a charming, olde-world village where property prices were the highest around. The house was called Pineapple Lodge because of two large carved stone pineapples, circa 1750, sitting on each of the gateposts which flanked the wrought-iron gates (Coalbrookdale, 1830) to the drive. The gate, once permanently open, was now permanently closed, and could be opened only by remote control from inside the house. Security devices were everywhere. Vilna’s husband was in prison. He was an Australian junk bond dealer who had run into trouble with the law three years back. Most of his properties had been sold, except for this one, originally purchased for Vilna’s mother, who had got out of Yugoslavia just before the country collapsed into little murderous parts, and could enter five songs, not one, for the Eurovision Song Contest. Here the two women, mother and daughter, waited until the time came when Clive would be paroled. Then their plan was to move to South Africa. In the meantime they made do with the West Country. Clive had many enemies, and they felt safer here. Strange faces in a remote country area were quickly spotted and obliged to account for themselves.
Ned and Alexandra had been to visit Vilna once or twice, but had been taken aback by the style and colour of the soft furnishings in a house rigorous in its original simplicity.
“It shouldn’t matter,” said Ned, “that the place looks like a Turkish harem, but it does. It makes it hard to take Vilna seriously.” The English countryside, everyone knew, was a place where mud must be taken into account, and dogs, and bicycles: where the furniture was oak or pine, antique, and where wealth was always understated. Ned said this was the Englishman’s traditional defence against the mob. Only the rich and knowledgeable could tell wealth from poverty. Even Mrs. Edwards, the live-in housekeeper, would complain at the store that her employers simply didn’t know how to behave. They were ostentatious and didn’t fit in.
The Cottage went for the most part unlocked—who could tell that that scrawl on the battered wall was a Picasso; that the old wood box was a Jacobean coffer, the coal scuttle a fine piece of Arts and Crafts in beaten copper; that the blackened fireback, circa 1705, was priceless? Vilna and Maria’s house, with its elaborately papered walls, its swathes of curtains, its plump sofas, its mahogany and walnut furniture, the plenitude of ormolu, and with TV and video everywhere in sight, was obviously worth robbing. Not just a casual village break-in, either. The real, planned stuff. What one villain owed to another. Clive Mansell’s family home.
So Vilna, not fitting in, was kept on the outskirts of the social life which centred round The Cottage and which easily embraced most of the eccentrics in the area—not quite excluded, not quite included. She would be asked to lunch, but seldom to dinner. That her husband was in prison was not held against her—he was a financial wizard, not any kind of common criminal, and had probably been framed anyway. So Abbie, who liked Vilna, and rather cared for vulgar cocktails clinking with ice served in elaborate glasses by the side of the swimming pool, told everyone, and many believed her.
Alexandra knew well enough that she herself was not exempt from local criticism. All right for Ned, although a newcomer to the area, to be a writer and critic. The occupation was familiar. There’d always been those about, moved down from the city: Thomas Hardy being an earlier example. Just about all right for Alexandra to be an actress, so long as she was a failed actress, a woman trying to get pregnant—for as such they defined her, once the receptionist at the surgery had spread the news. Alexandra was acceptable inasmuch as her husband was, and as long as she was unfortunate and could be pitied. But once her fortunes changed, once the run of A Doll’s House had started, once her picture was in the paper, once she’d had her photograph taken with Princess Anne—and since she now had a child and couldn’t be pitied and, worse, had more or less handed the child over to be looked after by Theresa the help—she was seen as flashy. Sussex would be a better county for her.
“Vilna,” said Alexandra, “what do you know about Jenny Linden?”
“I try not to think about her,” said Vilna. “Why depress oneself? She is quite mad. Why don’t you forget her?”
“Because she makes it difficult,” said Alexandra. “She keeps popping up. And because I have no idea what there is to forget. No one says anything clearly enough. If Jenny Linden was going round pestering my husband, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Darling, I don’t know you very well. We have been acquaintances, not friends. That has not been my doing. People round here are stand-offish. Abbie told me that word. Abbie is your friend: she should have told you. But she was too English. She thought if she looked the other way it would go away. She told me that.”
“I am sorry if I have seemed stand-offish,” said Alexandra, and she was. In the grim light of death anyone who lives seems valuable. Though the light quickly fades and we are back to normal. “I have just been so busy lately.”
“Did Ned encourage Jenny Linden in any way?” she asked. “Had he given her any reason to behave in the way she is?”
“You know Ned, darling,” said Vilna. “Always the ladies’ man.”
“No, I didn’t know him as that way at all,” said Alexandra stiffly, deciding she preferred Vilna as an acquaintance not a friend after all. “Ned was a very wife-and-child sort of man. A family man.”
“One can be so wrong about people,” said Vilna. “Even if married to them. I lived with Clive for four years and never knew he was a crim. I learnt that word from his friends. It is short for criminal.”
Vilna and Alexandra sat at the bar of the swimming pool and had drinks. Plum trees bent over the glass roof as if trying to get at the water below. The swimming pool, Alexandra realised, was where once the walled kitchen garden had been. The end wall of the room still incorporated some original Elizabethan brick. Everywhere else was gold and black mosaic.
“Isn’t this a fantastic pool? Otto Cavalier was the interior designer, darling, did you know?”
Alexandra said she’d never heard of Otto Cavalier, which didn’t go down too well. She returned to the subject of Clive, in which she felt safe.
“Nobody around here believes Clive is a criminal,” said Alexandra politely. “Not even his city colleagues. He was framed; he was a sacrificial victim. Everyone knows that. You mustn’t feel bad about it.”
“He is a crim,” said Vilna firmly. “I know that for a fact. An English judge said so and British law is the envy of the world. That is one of the reasons my mother and I came to this country in the first place. Your husband was not a criminal but he was certainly highly sexed. He would press any pretty woman up against a wall at a party; at least that was my experience. You would not want it otherwise, I suppose? Who wants a gelded horse when they can have the real thing?”
Alexandra, who had never thought of Vilna as pretty, just rather over made-up, decided Vilna was one of those women who are convinced that all men have designs upon them, so deluded are they about their own attractions. She did not have the energy to defend Ned’s reputation. She simply discounted Vilna’s account of him. “Tell me about Sunday morning,” she said.
“Abbie called me at about ten in the morning and I went round to The Cottage,” said Vilna, as if she had been rehearsed. “When I got there the ambulance was just leaving with the body. I was disappointed. I’d never seen a dead body.”
“I’m so sorry you were disappointed,” said Alexandra.
“Darling, I have offended you!” cried Vilna. “I am so tactless. Cancel, cancel, as they say! There was Jenny Linden running up and down like a cat in a seizure with hardly a stitch of clothing on. I could afford to run round like that; believe me, Jenny Linden cannot. Flop, bounce, wobble! I would be so ashamed. That woman could afford to lose at least thirty pounds.”
“No clothes on?”
“She had one of your nighties on. I think Abbie made her put it on, to save her modesty. But it was very light and lacey. Dr. Moebius gave her pills but
they made no difference at all.”
“Dr. Moebius gave Jenny Linden pills?”
“It might have been a jab, darling, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Forget it, darling. Your husband is gone. All men are bastards. Find another one, better than the last.”
“I need to get things clear in my head,” said Alexandra. “I know you are all trying to protect me but I wish you wouldn’t. And my husband was not all men, he was not a bastard. I love him.”
“It is only a figure of speech,” said Vilna. “Customary in this country.”
“How exactly did you see Jenny Linden off?” enquired Alexandra.
“I hit her,” said Vilna. “Forget it. We’re on your side, Alexandra.”
“There isn’t a side to be on,” said Alexandra. “Jenny Linden is just a sodding nuisance. I don’t want her saying anything to the fucking newspapers. What has Ned dying got to do with her? I don’t want her coming to the funeral, the bitch!”
“There is no need to swear,” said the wild woman of the mountain tribes, primly.
“So why did you feel obliged to vacuum my house?” enquired Alexandra.
“Because at home whenever I am in a crisis, I clean,” said Vilna, “like many women, and because it needed it, and because I am your friend, and you were coming home to more than enough.”
“Yes, I was,” said Alexandra. “I did. Thank you.” The two women smiled at one another. Alexandra drank her cocktail with a straw bent in the middle, designed to bypass chunks of pineapple, little flags and maraschino cherries. It was absurd. “Where did Abbie find my lace nightie?” asked Alexandra.
“Darling, you are so suspicious. You must not let yourself become paranoic. I have no idea. Your cupboard, your drawer?”
“Under my pillow, I expect. Why did she have to do that? It moves Jenny Linden far too close to Ned. It makes me feel ill.”
“It was just something loose Abbie could throw over Jenny. Like a cloth you throw over a birdcage to keep its occupant quiet.”
“I came to thank you both for helping me out. I’m not quite myself at the moment.”
“You’re welcome,” said Vilna.
“When you saw the body in the morgue,” said Alexandra, “what did Ned look like? I’ve never seen a dead body either. Is it frightening?”
“He didn’t look very dead to me. He looked astonished. Death tautens the jaw, like a facelift. It is very flattering. I was sorry, seeing him lying there, I hadn’t said yes. It’s a criminal waste of opportunity, don’t you think, saying no? We’re on this earth for such a little time; we’re cold and dark for so long.”
“Say no to what? I don’t understand you.”
“He said he kept the door unlocked when you were away so beautiful women could visit him at night. It was an invitation.”
“Vilna, it was a joke. Ned talks like that.”
“He was not my type anyway. And he was married to you. And you are my friend. And the dog would have jumped up. You English and your dogs.”
“It saves security gates,” said Alexandra, “in the middle of the countryside.”
“Your husband looks very peaceful in death and younger than in life. Jenny Linden looked at his corpse and screamed.”
“Jenny Linden saw the body? How do you know?”
“As Abbie and I left the morgue, Jenny Linden was coming in. We nearly crashed into her. Abbie’s a bad, bad driver. We had to stop. They went on. While Abbie was inspecting the damage I heard Jenny Linden scream.”
“Everyone’s been to see the body except for me? Even Jenny Linden?”
“Alexandra,” said Vilna, “you didn’t want to come with us. That was seen as strange.”
“I was exhausted,” said Alexandra. “I was in suspension. You should have waited until I’d been. I can’t see any point in seeing the corpse, it’s been so picked over. I’d rather remember him alive.”
“Ned said you would often be very tired. Career women so often are. It is the penalty men pay in return for their wives’ salaries. I have never worked in all my life. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She clicked her fingers and her mother appeared from nowhere with more drinks. She was wearing pink rubber sandals with very thick stockings. She went away again. Vilna did not speak to her.
“How does Jenny Linden get to The Cottage? Does she drive or does she walk?” asked Alexandra, choosing to ignore this last. “Or perhaps she comes on a broomstick.”
“She didn’t have her car on Sunday. After I’d hit her and she’d stopped running round and screaming, I had to drive her back. She wouldn’t have been fit to drive anyway. She clung to the doorhandle; she kept saying it was her house by rights, I had to drag her away. She complained no one was being nice to her. I said you were on your way, in all decency she had to stay away, and I offered her £200 to make sure she did. I thought that was about the right sum. Not too little, not too much. A tip.”
“You what?”
“Money’s nothing,” said Vilna. “I felt for you. Women like Jenny Linden can be dangerous. At home where people are sensible they are found dead in a ditch; knifed. Here you do not use knives, you use money. My mother and I follow the customs of the country. It is advisable. Do you want to see my new crown?” she asked. She opened her mouth and Alexandra looked inside.
“Very nice,” she said, and went to visit Jenny Linden.
7
JENNY LINDEN’S HOUSE WAS in the old part of town: a row of cottages facing a wide but secluded street, on the other side of it being the high brick wall of Eddon Gurney prison, built 1718, and now Grade One Listed as a building of prime architectural and heritage interest. The prison had been recently taken out of service: the level of absenteeism and suicide amongst its staff had finally impinged upon the authorities: no amount of re-organisation or counselling, it seemed, could ameliorate the terror and fear that oozed out of the old stone walls. But the city council had begun the work of converting the building into a Penitentiary Theme Park, the first of its kind in the land.
No. 42 sat snugly amongst its similar neighbours: two-storey cottages with thick walls, built to house the prison warders. A plaster front, a porched front door, a large square window to the right, a kitchen out the back, two bedrooms, and a bathroom extension above the kitchen. Out the back door was a little square garden. Once such a dwelling would have housed a man, a wife, an aunt or so and some children. Now it served very well as a love nest for one. Cosy.
There was a parking space outside, but Alexandra left her car a little way down the road. She looked through Jenny Linden’s window but saw no one inside. A rather handsome orange cat sat on the inside sill, next to a well-cared-for pot plant, and stared bleakly at her. Alexandra could see beyond cat and plant into a room which was vaguely arty: orange throws over ethnic wicker chairs, a large table on which were the bits and pieces of work in progress—bits of card, pieces of fabric—an easel; a rug on a polished floor; theatre posters on the walls; photographs everywhere. She could not make out the detail. A zodiac lamp; a deep sofa on which a couple could copulate, just about.
Alexandra rang the front door bell. No one came. She looked up and down the road. No one. Children were at school, adults at work. These were aspiring little houses; not for those on welfare. Alexandra slipped a credit card between lock and hasp and pushed. It was how she opened the door of her London flat, after the show, after the late-night supper, if she had forgotten her key. Jenny Linden’s door opened. Such a method of entry would never have worked at Vilna’s house. Alexandra went inside. The house smelt of lavender toilet water and scented soap, of paint and glue. There was a sense of desperation in the air, of serenity suddenly shattered: a coat which should have been on a peg fallen on the floor and not picked up; in the small kitchen a bag of shopping left on the floor and still unpacked. Frozen food losing its hardness, going soggy: the opposite of a dead body, which started soggy and went hard. The silence felt temporary, as if recently rent by tears and wails which would at any mom
ent start again.
Alexandra went to the front window, pulled the curtains; switched on the lamp. On the table, open, was a diary. There were few entries: crosses here and there, and question marks. Today’s entry. Bristol, 12—1, Leah. Bristol was 20 miles away. It was now five past twelve. Jenny Linden had dropped everything to get to her therapist. She had not taken her address book with her. That was open by the telephone. Alexandra’s address book was crammed and messy. Jenny’s was neat, but there were few entries. Ned’s name wasn’t there, not under L, not under N. Alexandra herself was there, in the A’s. Her London address and telephone number. How had Jenny Linden come by that?
Alexandra looked at the photographs pinned up on the wall. Ned everywhere. Ned at parties at The Cottage, Ned with Diamond in the garden, Ned in the garden putting up the bean-stalk pyramids. He did that every year. Who had taken these? Jenny? Lurked behind the hedge and snapped away? Had she stolen them, acquired them from Ned himself? Or entered The Cottage when they were both away and pried into the family photographs? It was horrible to think of that. They locked the house only if it was empty, but anyone who knew the house could break in easily enough. And Jenny Linden seemed to know the house so well. She couldn’t talk to Ned about it. She would never be able to ask Ned anything again. The photographs had a curious flatness, as photographs do when they represent the dead, not the living. “The dead” was a strange notion: you could only define it by a negative: someone, something, once alive, now not. A rock wasn’t “dead”—it was just inanimate. Alexandra found she was standing in the centre of Jenny Linden’s living room in suspension once again, thoughts looping. Whatever her business was here, and she was not yet quite sure what it was, she could not afford to waste time. She did not want to be discovered by Jenny Linden. The orange cat stared at her; slowly got to its four feet, arched its back idly, and walked from the room to sit by the front door. She worried for a moment in case it could talk, but that was absurd. A thought transposed from her thoughts about Diamond. If he could talk, what would he say? It seemed wilful of him not to, as if he wasn’t on her side. But this wasn’t a matter of “sides.” Why did she feel under attack? Well, obviously—mad Jenny Linden. Enough to unsettle anyone, make them worry in case cats talked.
