by Simon Brett
“But not tonight. This is her engagement party, after all.”
He thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. Not the moment. They’re not going back to London tonight, are they?”
“No, they’re staying in a hotel. And then Gaby said something about going to her parents for coffee tomorrow morning.”
“Right. I’ll talk to her then.”
“Ah. You having a good time, Carole?” asked a painfully familiar voice behind her. “Good evening, I’m…erm…the groom’s father. David Seddon.”
“Robert Coleman.” The men shook hands formally. “Well, you two must be very proud of your young man.”
“Oh yes. We…erm…certainly are.”
“Yes. Though I should point out that we’re actually divorced,” said Carole clumsily.
“Right.” There was a silence. The intimacy between Carole and Robert, weakened by her mention of the burglary, had dissipated completely with David’s arrival. “If you’ll excuse me – I have to say a few words about the happy couple – must just check through my notes.”
After he had gone, ex-husband and ex-wife looked at each other. “That was…erm…Gaby’s uncle, was it?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sure we’ll get to know them all very well, as the…erm…years go on.”
“Yes,” said Carole. She felt suddenly very low and miserable. All she wanted to do was to rush out to the sanctuary of her Renault, and find the anonymous haven of her hotel. Or, even better, drive straight back to Fethering.
“…and, though Gabs may have come a bit earlier than expected when she was born, she certainly hasn’t rushed into marriage. Indeed, I don’t think I’m the only one who was beginning to think it’d never happen. For my generation, you see, a girl who’s reached thirty is automatically on the shelf. Still, all good things come to those who wait – and, of course, the best wine takes a long time to mature, so I like to think that Stephen has certainly got the pick of the cellar. He’s got my favourite niece, and in my book, that makes him a very lucky man. And Gabs is a lucky girl too. From what I’ve seen of Stephen, he seems a very mature and sensible young man, who I’m sure will curb Gaby’s worst excesses – ”
“You’ve got a bloody cheek, Uncle,” Gaby said through the ripple of raucous laughter.
“So all I want to do is to ask you all to raise your glasses, to say to Gaby and Stephen – many congratulations on your engagement, and we wish you many years of happiness together.”
“Gaby and Stephen!”
Marie Martin had been right. Her brother was a good public speaker. And yet, as he went through the motions of his oratory, Carole thought he seemed distracted. The minute the toast had been taken, the bonhomie dropped away from his face, to be replaced by a dour sternness. She wondered if it was the news of Gaby’s burglary that was preoccupying him.
Stephen, who – like his mother – was not a natural public speaker, made a perfectly adequate, if over-formal, thank you, particularly expressing his gratitude to “Marie and Howard for laying on this splendid party.” He wasn’t so hypocritical as to praise the venue. Carole watched Robert Coleman. He clearly wanted to get to Gaby, but the knot of congratulatory guests around her made that impossible, so he moved across to her brother. Phil had to bend down to listen to his uncle’s earnest whispering.
Throughout the party, Marie and Howard had hardly moved from their greeting position by the entrance to the suite. They stood nervously, as if, rather than being the hosts of the occasion, they were guests who didn’t know anyone. Howard sipped away at a glass of beer, but Carole hadn’t seen his wife take a drink all evening. Howard’s face was blank; probably the hubbub in the room made it impossible for him to hear anything.
Stephen came to join her, and she could see the strain of the occasion in his pale blue eyes. “All seems very jolly,” she said, in the teeth of the evidence.
“Yes. Not exactly how Gaby and I would have done it if it’d been our choice, but…very generous of Howard and Marie.”
“Oh yes. Very generous.”
“And, if it’s done nothing else, I must say I’m really pleased that it’s brought you and Dad together.”
The words were out before she could stop them – a waspish “Only geographically.”
“Yes, but…it will be all right for the wedding?” he asked anxiously.
“Of course it will, Stephen. We’re both adults, and we’re well enough brought up to know how to behave.”
“I’m aware of that. I just hoped that, maybe, by seeing more of each other, you might – ”
“Stephen, if you’re hoping there’s going to be some rapprochement between your father and me, forget it.”
Carole found she was speaking more angrily than sheintended. “We’ll not disgrace ourselves at your wedding, but after that we will go back to the only relationship between us that has ever worked – in other words, not seeing each other.”
“I’m…erm…rather sorry to hear you say that, Carole.”
Damn. She hadn’t heard David creeping up to join their conversation. Quite what she should say next was something of a challenge. There was no danger of their having a stand-up row – neither of them had ever been any good at stand-up rows – but Carole couldn’t think of anything she might say that wouldn’t sour the minimal atmosphere of the engagement party. She certainly wasn’t going to take back what she’d just said.
Her dilemma was solved by a sudden commotion over by the door. She looked across to see Howard, Robert, Phil and Gaby looking down in horror at the fallen figure of Marie Martin. They were frozen in surprise for a second, then Gaby knelt down to help her mother up.
As Carole moved towards them, she heard Marie murmur, “It’s all right. I don’t want to make a fuss. It’s just the heat.”
Gaby held her arm firmly around her mother’s waist and looked at her anxiously. Carole felt she was probably intruding into something private, but she couldn’t walk away now. Looking up at her, Gaby said, “Mum does get these fainting spells sometimes.”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Just enjoy the party.”
“This was bound to happen some time.” It was Howard Martin who spoke, and he didn’t sound as though he was referring to his wife’s collapse. He looked firmly at his brother-in-law, as he went on, “I knew he was going to come back. I’ve talked to him.”
“What?” Robert Coleman sounded in deep shock.
“On the phone. I’m going to meet him tomorrow.”
“Here in Harlow?”
“Yes. He’s in the area. He deserves to have his say.”
“Doesn’t deserve anything,” Phil said viciously. “He has no rights.”
This intriguing conversation was stopped when Marie’s knees once again gave way. Phil rushed forward to help his sister support their mother’s slack body.
“We must get her home,” said Gaby. “I’ll take her.”
“No, you can’t,” her mother moaned. “This party’s for you. You can’t leave the guests.”
“Well, Steve could – ”
“No, it’s his party too. Oh, I’m sorry to spoil everything.”
“You’re not spoiling everything, Mum. Dad, shall I call for a cab?”
“You’ll be lucky. When I tried to book one for later, they said they hadn’t got anything all evening. Some big conference, I don’t know…”
“We’ll find someone to drive you back.”
“Well, I’m only on the bike,” said Phil.
“And I walked here,” said Robert.
“I’ll do it,” Carole announced. “I’ll drive you home, Marie.”
∨ The Witness at the Wedding ∧
Ten
Marie Martin didn’t want to say anything beyond giving directions to her flat. It was less than two miles away. She was very grateful for the lift, and she didn’t want to be a nuisance, and Carole would have plenty of time to get back and enjoy the rest of the party. Carole did
n’t say that she regarded the early departure as providential, and, after delivering her passenger, firmly intended to go straight back to her hotel. She didn’t care that by doing so, she’d leave David without transport. Seeing her ex-husband in a social context had been a surprisingly disagreeable experience. She hadn’t realized how much resentment towards him she had been bottling up over the years.
But hostility towards David was not the only thought in her mind. There was also a huge curiosity about what had happened at the engagement party. She felt sure there was some connection between Robert Coleman’s violent reaction to the news of Gaby’s burglary and Marie’s fainting fit. Even more than that, she wanted to know who Howard had been referring to in his strange utterance about someone ‘coming back’. Carole was at least going to try to get something out of her passenger on those two matters.
Still, she’d have to edge her way carefully into the subject. “It never occurred to me that Robert wouldn’t have known about the break-in to Gaby’s flat.”
“What?” asked Marie, shocked. “What break-in?”
“She didn’t tell you either?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Carole. When did this happen?”
“Last weekend.”
“Pascale – Gaby – often doesn’t tell me things that she thinks might upset me.” This was said with a degree of satisfaction, as though Marie’s hypersensitivity gave her an immunity from some of life’s unpleasantnesses.
There was a silence. Carole thought she was going to have to probe again, but Marie Martin’s curiosity got the better of her. Turning towards Carole, and peering through her thick glasses, she asked, “What was taken in the burglary? Did they get away with a lot of stuff?”
“Hardly anything. But Gaby thought someone had been through her personal papers.”
“How do you mean – personal papers?”
“Tax records, passport, address book, birth certificate, that kind of thing.”
“Oh God.”
The words came out as an involuntary gasp.
“Are you all right, Marie? Do you want me to stop the car?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” But she didn’t sound fine, as shewent on, bleakly, “You can never get away with anything in life. There are always ghosts going to come back to haunt you.”
“What do you mean?”
But Marie Martin realized she’d already said too much, and clammed up.
Carole wasn’t going to leave it there, though. “Who was Howard talking about?”
“What?”
“Just after you fainted, he said to Robert that someone had come back, that he had talked to him on the phone and that he was going to see him tomorrow.”
“I didn’t hear that. I must have been out cold.”
But she wasn’t convincing even herself.
“I don’t think that’s true, Marie. You heard him. Who is this man who’s come back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone Howard used to work with.”
“I think you do know. I think it was hearing he was coming back that brought on your fainting fit.”
There was a silence, which was then broken by the little whimpering sounds of Marie Martin crying.
What an incongruous conversation this is, Carole couldn’t help thinking. Here I am, on only the second occasion that I’ve met my son’s prospective mother-in-law, and I’m giving her the third degree in my car, and I’ve actually made her cry. I’m sure that’s not what’s recommended for this kind of encounter in all those books of wedding etiquette.
“It’s just here on the left. Behind that red car.”
Carole slowed the Renault down and it came to rest outside an anonymous grey block of flats, whose exterior suggested offices. Beneath the windows, panels of faded green plastic, no doubt at the cutting edge of architecture when the flats had been built, now seemed only to draw attention to the drab greyness of the prevailing concrete.
Carole was determined to get more information out of her passenger, but as soon as the car had stopped, the door was opened and, with a muttered ‘Thank you for the lift’, Mane Martin had scuttled off and into the darkness of the interior. With a sigh of exasperation, Carole Seddon slammed the Renault back into gear and drove off.
She lay on one of the twin beds in the anonymous room identical to every other anonymous room in that hotel – and in anonymous lonely hotels all over the world. She hadn’t undressed yet, but lay on top of the covers, sipping the minibar’s white wine directly from the bottle and watching the kind of television she’d never have bothered to watch at home. She felt tired, but still too unsettled for sleep.
At first she couldn’t believe it when she heard the tap on the door. Must be a loose window fitting somewhere, or someone along the corridor in another room had a visitor.
But no. The tapping started again. And definitely on her door.
She moved forward with fascinated honor. She wasn’t afraid; she just couldn’t believe what washappening because there was only one person who could possibly be tapping on her door at that time of night in that hotel.
“Hello? Who is that?”
“It’s…erm…me. David.”
Telling him to get lost – which was what she should have done – suddenly seemed an insuperable effort. She was too tired for any more conflict. Wearily, she opened the door. “What do you want?”
“Just wanted to have a word.”
He sounded maudlin drunk. Now she came to think of it, he had been putting quite a lot away at the engagement party. Oh God, any sort of David was bad enough, but a self-pitying drunken David – she didn’t feel she could cope.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Why the hell should I? We have absolutely nothing in common except for shared memories of unhappiness. What makes you think you can just…
But she didn’t say any of it. Everything felt like too much effort. She backed away from the door. “Come in.” She returned to where her wine was. She wished she’d decanted it into a glass, but she took hold of the bottle and sat demurely on the edge of the bed.
“Well, if you’re…erm…having a drink…”
“You know where the minibar is: presumably in exactly the same place as it is in your room.”
David opened the little fridge, and produced two miniature Scotches, which he poured into a plastic glass. Dear oh dear, he really was overdoing it. He looked shabbily pathetic, but if he was hoping for sympathy from Carole · he surely knew her well enough to realize how slim his chances were.
“Shall I come and…erm…sit beside you?”
“There’s a perfectly good chair over there.”
“Yes, but…” Something in her eye stopped him. He subsided into the chair and raised his plastic glass with mock bravado. “Here’s to you, Carole.”
Thank God at least that he hadn’t tried, “Here’s to us.”
He drank down about half of his drink, and then said, “I ended up walking from the other hotel. There weren’t any cabs to be had for love nor money.”
“I forgot I said I’d give you a lift. I’m sorry.” Which she wasn’t.
David swallowed down most of the rest of his drink, and was silent.
“What do you want, David?” Carole asked in exasperation. “You said you ‘just wanted to have a word’. About what?”
“Well, there are…erm…two things.”
Oh God, here we go. David had always itemized, always categorized, always spoken under headings. He had all the props of efficiency, without actually being efficient.
“First, I thought this evening went all right.”
“Presumably it went as Howard and Marie wanted it to go, yes.”
“He seemed very happy, certainly. I was talking to him just as he was leaving. But that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Sorry?”
“About this evening. What I meant was that I thought we coped with this evening very well.”
“We?”
“Yes. I’m sure we were both nervous – you know, not having seen each other for quite a while and…erm…you know, considering what happened between us.”
“What happened between us’, David, was that we got divorced. We decided we no longer wanted to be married to each other That we no longer wanted to spend time together.”
“Ah, now those are two separate things. I’d like to think that now we’ve…erm…come to terms with what happened…erm…got a bit of distance from it, that we could see each other from time to time.”
Please, no, thought Carole. I’ve got my life in Fethering. I’ve got Gulliver. I’ve got Jude. I just don’t need this.
But what she found herself saying was, “Well, we’ll have to see. I’m sure when Stephen and Gaby are married…you know, there’ll be family occasions when we meet up.”
“Like christenings, eh?” said David, with what she reckoned must have been intended to be a roguish wink.
“Maybe.”
She looked at her watch, which served to give David impetus for the other thing he had to say, “It’s about the marriage I wanted to talk to you.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it before September. All the arrangements seem to be going fine.”
“No.” He held up a rather unsteady hand. “What I wanted to ask you about the marriage was…erm…do you think it’s a good thing?”
This was so completely not the question she was expecting that Carole found herself mouthing vacuously. “Well, yes. I mean, Stephen and Gaby seem to adore each other, which is, after all, what’s most important.”
“Yes, but” – he was now wagging a finger at her – “what about the family?”
“Well, they’re very quiet, they’re not demonstrative, but it’s Gaby Stephen’s marrying, not her family.”
“But do you think our son should be allying himself to…erm…a bunch of Essex gangsters?”
“What did you say, David?”
“That boy…erm…Phil, her brother, he’s got a criminal record.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t make the family ‘a bunch of Essex gangsters’.”
“And…” David went on portentously, “he’s not the only one of them who’s been in prison.”
