“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes I do.”
“Do you really think that I did him in?”
“No. But I think you gave Flaxman the key to his house.”
Julie’s face was suffused with a sudden flush, and she realised at once that she had betrayed herself. “You can’t speak to me like that. That’s slander, that is.”
Sam could not bear the tension and animosity between the two women; he got up and, leaving the room, walked up the front path of the small dusty garden where grew roses and geraniums. He could hear their voices rising and falling in counterpoint. There was a silence and, just as their quarrel resumed, Sam went back into the house.
“Flaxman said he wanted a notebook,” Julie was saying. “A diary. I agreed to help him find it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Why do you think? Money. Ruppy wasn’t exactly a philanthropist. Anyway, I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere. I was sure that Ruppy had put something in the safe, but it wasn’t there.”
“What’s in the book?”
“How am I supposed to know? I wasn’t Ruppy’s keeper.”
“You’re shouting again.”
“I have a right to shout. You have been accusing me. Threatening me.”
Again there was a pause, both women becoming quickly exhausted by their argument that seemed as if it might have no end. “So then what happened? You couldn’t find the book. What did you do?”
“Flaxman arranged to meet me at the north end of Battersea Bridge. Funny spot, really. Very windy. A lot of traffic. Maybe that’s why he chose it. No one could hear him. He was a strange one. Dressed like a tailor’s mannequin, but with the face and manners of a navvy. He had very small hands. I remember that.”
“Why did he want to see you?”
“Why do you think? He wanted my help. Where did I think the book might be? That kind of thing. I told him that it was more likely to be in Ruppy’s house than anywhere else. That was my first thought.”
Sally glanced at Sam, as if divining his thought. “So you decided to give him the key.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Sally was indignant. “How could you betray him like that?”
“Don’t use that word to me, Madame Palliser.”
“So you gave Flaxman the key,” Sam said in a voice that he hoped was without blame.
“He knew the address already. They had some some kind of business in the past. Something dodgy, or I’m a Dutchman.”
“And he went there to look for the book.”
“I assume so.”
“This was on the morning that Ruppta was killed.”
“So it seems.”
“Assume? Seems?” Sally went over to Sam, and held on to the back of the chair in which he was sitting. “You know what happened, Julie.”
“Do I?”
“Ruppta surprised Flaxman, and he was killed. Simple.”
“Is anything ever simple? Do you know the reasons for anything you ever do, Sally? Do you understand the consequences? I don’t. I don’t think anyone does.” At this moment Julie appeared to Sam to have acquired some kind of power; it was as if he had seen the blue vault of heaven open above her. She moved towards the door. “Would you like your son to know how his father behaved? Arson. Beatings. He set dogs on some of his tenants. I am sure Andrew would like to read about that. And would he like to learn about his mother? Don’t you think I know all about you, Sally? Silence might be the best policy.”
“I don’t accept that.” Sally’s voice was uncertain, and she looked towards Sam for a response. He sat with his head bowed.
“Well,” Julie said with an expression of triumph. “There we have it.”
“We can’t leave it like that.” Sam raised his head. “Something has got to happen.”
“Hasn’t enough happened already?” Julie got ready to leave.
“You can’t work here any longer,” he said.
“Why should I want to? I don’t really fancy working for a whore.” Sally walked over to her, and slapped her hard upon her right cheek. Julie put up her hand to her face, and laughed. “Listen,” she said, “it’s beginning to rain.” Sam also heard the sound of a swift and sudden shower. But when he walked over to the window, there was no rain falling.
XX
A happy shagger
AS LONG as her husband still lived, Lady Flaxman was in charge of the company; only on his death would it pass to her daughter. “Of course,” she said to Harry, “I would prefer to be the merry widow. But not everything is possible.” Her care for her husband was exemplary; she had installed a team of three nurses in the house on Cheyne Walk. Whenever she referred to her husband she called him “Sir Martin” and spoke almost in a whisper. “I am tiptoeing,” she told Guinevere, “through the tulips.”
All decisions about the Chronicle were now directed to her. Harry was at first dismayed by her ascendancy—thinking that he would only ever have to deal with a more compliant Guinevere—but slowly he began to adapt to the situation.
“You know, Harry,” Lady Flaxman said to him one evening as they sat alone in the office that had once been her husband’s, “he could go on for a long time. Modern medicine is absolutely wonderful. Have you thought about that?”
“Surely you could hand things over to Guinevere?”
“Guinevere hasn’t got a clue. She is a social worker. She’s practically brain-dead. But you know that, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly at him. “She would need a big man behind her. Are you big, Harry?”
“You must ask Guinevere.”
“Why don’t I find out for myself?” She gave a harsh laugh when she saw his expression of horror. “I won’t eat you, you know. Or perhaps I will. Would you mind that, Harry?”
“You’re Guinevere’s mother.”
“What has Guinevere got to do with it? Have you got something against mothers?” He shook his head. “I should hope not. Well, we will be very discreet.”
“No. I mean that I can’t do this, Maud.”
“Lady Flaxman, please. Think of it as business.” He waited solemnly for her to continue. “The boss is always right. Isn’t that what he used to say?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Not a threat. An opportunity. I can do things that Guinevere cannot even imagine.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I am not sure what you mean by that.”
“In the sphere of business, Harry. I have plans.” She outlined to him her scheme for an Evening Chronicle and a Sunday Chronicle, making use of the same building, the same presses and the same staff. “We won’t just be printing newspapers,” she said, “we will be printing money. Does that excite you, Harry? Will you be a happy shagger?” She came over and grabbed his cock. “I think something is stirring.”
So began the affair between Lady Flaxman and Harry Hanway. Harry was surprised how quickly he overcame his initial reluctance; she was Guinevere’s mother and he began to notice, or to emphasise to himself, the ways in which physically she resembled her daughter. She was not desirable, but she was not altogether repulsive. He was in any case strangely excited by her schemes for the future; he had not believed that he could be aroused by the idea of profit, but had that not been one of the reasons for his attraction to Guinevere?
Lady Flaxman was very eager in her lovemaking, although she often expressed horror at her husband’s treatment of her in bed. “In the past,” she told Harry, “I have been a common field system for that man. He has ploughed me and fertilised me. It was medieval. I might have been laid out in strips.”
“He would handle me,” she said on another occasion, “as if I were a church organ. Pushing bits in. Pulling bits out. And all the time paddling with his feet.”
She was not insatiable, but she was demanding. There was a small attic room in the house at Cheyne Walk, where she frequently took Harry; she called it “the blue lagoon.”
&n
bsp; Harry was relieved by the fact that Guinevere was more than ever detached from married life; or perhaps she was simply more distracted by her cares as a social worker. In particular she seemed to be worried about Sparkler; as far as Harry could gather from her comments, the young man had been dismissed by his publishing employers for petty theft, and was now descending into a state of bored and listless drunkenness. “He used to be so cheerful,” she said to her husband. “Now he can’t be bothered to get up.”
“You can’t help someone who will not help himself.”
“If I hear that again, I will scream. It doesn’t absolve me.”
Guinevere seemed unaware of the relationship between her mother and her husband. She still invited Lady Flaxman to the house in Mount Street, where she half-listened to her complaints about the business, the state of her husband and of the world in general. “How’s Dad?” was her first question one evening.
“Well, he is not tap dancing. And he’s not getting fat on a drip, I can assure you of that.” At this moment Harry entered the room. “Ah, Mr. Hanway. My partner in crime.” She smiled sweetly at her daughter. “Don’t you think your husband is looking well these days, dear? He has such a spring in his step. And I’m sure he’s lost weight. How do you do it, Harry?”
“Healthy living, Maud.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I don’t doubt it for a moment. Do you, Guinevere?”
“What? No. Harry is always good to me.”
“I gather from Mrs. A. that you have a healthy appetite. Even for her food. You are very brave.”
“He eats carefully, Mummy.”
In fact the Hanways remained polite and good-natured in each other’s company; they had so few mutual interests that they found it unnecessary to quarrel. They shared the house. That was all.
Harry always took a shower after he had returned from an encounter with Lady Flaxman, and then climbed into bed smelling only of almond-scented gel. He felt no guilt about the matter. It was, as Lady Flaxman had said, business. Already he had been promoted to the post of chief executive, with a large rise in salary; the more money he earned, the more fervent became his lovemaking.
One evening Harry, on a visit to Cheyne Walk, heard the sound of high-pitched laughter from behind the closed door of Martin Flaxman’s sickroom. He put his ear to the door, and made out the voice of Lady Flaxman. “Look at you, you old tart,” he heard her say. “You’re all knocked up. Finished. I just wanted to let you know that I am spending your money and fucking your editor. Or whatever he was. Enjoying myself, sweetheart, I really am. That’s never happened before. Oh, one other thing. I always hated you touching me. I despised you. But I don’t want you dead. Oh no. I want you to be a vegetable. While I’m having fun. Now look. You’re dribbling. Does that mean you can hear me? Is that your new way of crying?”
Lady Flaxman was always capable of surprising Harry. “That day is coming,” she said to him at the beginning of March, “the holy day.”
“What day is that?”
“Mother’s Day. It has always been a sacred day in my book.” She had in fact consigned her ailing mother to an inexpensive care home in Bromley, and had never visited her there. “Is it for you, Harry? Is your mother that special person in your heart?”
“I have told you that my mother is dead.” He looked back at her impassively.
“Oh yes. Sorry. I forgot.” She put her hands upon her hips and began to sing. “ ‘Sally. Sally. Pride of our alley. You’re more than the whole world to me.’ Lovely old song, isn’t it? Wartime. Gracie Fields. Our Gracie.”
He looked away.
Lady Flaxman began to inflict on him little humiliations. She once handed him his tie neatly cut in half. “I do hate that colour,” she told him. “It makes you look like a cinema attendant.” On another occasion she ordered him to gargle with an antiseptic. “The smell of drink on your breath is so vulgar.”
The resentment, and the instinct for revenge, were by now deeply planted in him. At night, while lying beside Guinevere, he would entertain fantasies of following Lady Flaxman and striking her down unseen and unknown.
One morning he went into the drawing room of the house in Cheyne Walk, and found her standing beside a small and highly polished oval table. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “I have decided to tell Guinevere. She ought to know what kind of husband she has. How can I keep a secret like that from my own daughter?”
He looked at her curiously, not clearly taking in what she had said. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s very simple, Harry. I intend to tell Guinevere about us.”
Slowly he comprehended the fact that his life was about to change for the worse. “Why do you want to do that?”
“What can I tell you? Life’s a bitch. And so am I.” She paused to consider. “Why does anyone want to do anything? I do it because I can. I do it because I like it. I like you, Harry, hard though it is to believe.” He stepped towards her, but she looked at him defiantly. “Have you ever wanted to do the one thing you know you should not do? Wouldn’t that be a great relief? To press the button that might destroy you? And then it becomes more like a need. The need to fling yourself off the cliff. It would not be right, of course. But what are right and wrong anyway? Just words.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain. I just want something to happen, Harry.”
“You can’t do it.”
“I can do anything. Watch.” She picked up the telephone on the oval table, and began to dial a number. So he went towards her, snatched the telephone from her hand, and began to wrap the cord around her neck. She seemed not to resist, or perhaps he did not notice her resistance. He pulled the cord tight and watched her eyes as he throttled her; they soared upwards.
He shook her, enraged by her weak response, and then pushed her violently to the floor; the telephone fell upon her left shoulder, but she was no longer moving. He stood over her for a minute or so, waiting patiently for any sign of life so that he could extinguish it. He realised then that she was staring at him in surprise, almost as if he had made a sudden and unexpected remark.
He left the house and, closing the front door very quietly, he walked across the street towards the Thames. As he approached the river he stopped, and looked around. It was a dry clear day, and the air was very still. A small flock of pigeons, animated with one purpose, landed on the green that lay between the house and the river. He started walking on the embankment road, thinking of nothing. His mind was completely clear and untroubled, doing nothing more than receive the impressions of the world around him.
When he reached Battersea Bridge he was invaded by a sudden fear; he fled in panic. Although he did not know who his pursuer was, he did not dare look over his shoulder. Then it occurred to him that he was trying to run away from himself. At that point his panic subsided; he stopped, his shirt damp with sweat, when he came up to Vauxhall Bridge. He did not think about what had happened. It held no meaning for him.
There were sounds all about him—horns, whistles, bells, shouts and cries surrounded him. He might have drowned in the clamour. Yet he had the strangest sensation that all this noise emanated from himself. He was the source of the commotion. He sat down on a bench beside the river. Wait and hope. Wait for what? Hope? He could see only darkness for him; darkness behind, and darkness ahead.
He was coming up to Westminster Bridge, where the landing stages for the river-boats lined the bank. Ticket sellers were calling out “Kingston!” and “Richmond!,” “Greenwich!” and “Kew”; for a moment he contemplated the choice of one of these destinations. One would be as good as another. But then he changed his mind. He walked onto the bridge. As he approached the rail overlooking the river, he wondered what Sam and Daniel were doing at this particular moment. He tested the rail with his hand, and as Big Ben tolled midday, he eased himself across it and jumped into the water. A dog barked somewhere. It was just an ordinary day.
XXI
Surprisingly good
DANIEL HANWAY approached the television studios of Shepherd’s Bush in a state of terror. What if he could not master or remember his words, or sweated uncontrollably, or said quite the wrong thing? He had been asked to participate in a panel discussion on a biography of Mary Shelley, a new novel by Graham Greene, and a history of New York. None of these subjects remotely interested him, but he had forced himself to concoct opinions on all of them. He wrote these opinions on small pieces of paper, and then memorised them.
As he approached the reception desk he felt a curious lightness in his head. He allowed himself to be conducted into a lift, and then into a passage, and then into a small room where he was greeted by a young woman who called herself a researcher. “I’m Camilla,” she said, “you’re the first. Tea or coffee?”
He was in a kind of trance. “Yes,” he said, “that will be fine.”
“Tea or coffee?”
“Neither, thank you.” He did not believe that he had the strength to swallow anything.
The two other guests, on the book panel with him, were a biographer and a journalist who had been the New York correspondent of the Chronicle. Daniel knew both of them by reputation, such as it was, but had not met either of them. They seemed to him to be making every effort to appear calm and casual at the prospect of the ordeal.
The biographer was an easy-mannered middle-aged man who seemed to be the very epitome of bland equability. Every word was correct, every expression and gesture measured. He purred his words, and gently chuckled at his own wit. Daniel did not trust him. The journalist was sharp and, even to a stranger like Daniel, a little acerbic; his words came out in a volley, his voice rising and falling in continual exasperation. Daniel was wary of him. He did not pause to contemplate, however, what impression he was making on them.
They were led into a studio, a brightly lit room chill with the air of vacancy; it was unreal, with an abstraction of two sofas and a bookcase. There was a coffee table with a neat pile of books and four glasses of water upon it. A small microphone was being clipped to the lapel of his jacket as the presenter of the programme walked onto the set. Daniel had seen Helen Gurney before, as a participant in various documentaries connected to the arts. She had short dark hair, and wore a large pair of glasses that seemed to magnify the earnestness of her gaze. She spoke forcefully in a low voice, carefully modulated, but seemed to be half-apologetic about introducing anything as vulgar as a book panel. Her favourite phrase was “it seems to me.…” “Do you not think,” she asked Daniel as the camera turned upon him, “that feminism has changed the terms of the debate on Mary Shelley herself? It seems to me that her narratives must be deconstructed with much more care.”
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