Devices & Desires - Dalgleish 08

by P. D. James

  Alice Mair said calmly: 'Good afternoon, Ryan,' but did not appear to expect an answer. She nodded towards the portrait and went on: 'It's remarkable, certainly. What are you proposing to do with it? I can hardly suppose that she sat for you or that it was commissioned.'

  'She didn't need to sit. I know that face. I'm showing it at the Norwich Contemporary Arts Exhibition on October the third if I can get it there. The van is out of use.'

  Alice Mair said: 'I'll be driving to London within the next week. I could collect it and deliver it if you let me have the address.'

  He said: 'If you like.' The response was ungracious but Dalgliesh thought he detected relief. Then he added: 'I'll leave it packed and labelled to the left of the door in the painting shed. The light is just above it. You can collect it whenever it suits you. No need to knock.' The last words had the force of a command, almost of a warning.

  Miss Mair said: 'I'll telephone you when I know when I'm going. By the way, I don't think you've met Mr Dalgliesh. He saw the children on the road and thought of giving them a lift.'

  Blaney didn't say thank you, but after a moment's hesitation held out his hand which Dalgliesh grasped. Then he said gruffly, 'I liked your aunt. She telephoned offering to help when my wife was ill and when I said there was nothing she or anyone could do, she didn't keep fussing. Some people can't keep away from a deathbed. Like the Whistler, they get their kicks from watching people die.'

  'No,' said Dalgliesh, 'she never fussed. I shall miss her. I'm sorry about your wife.'

  Blaney didn't reply, but stared hard at Dalgliesh as if assessing the sincerity of that simple statement, and then said curtly, 'Thank you for helping the children,' and lifted his son from Dalgliesh's shoulder. It was a clear gesture of dismissal.

  Neither of them spoke as Dalgliesh negotiated the track and finally turned on to the higher road. It was as if the cottage had exerted some spell which it was important to throw off before they talked. Then he asked: 'Who is that woman in the portrait?'

  'I hadn't realized that you didn't know. Hilary Robarts. She's Acting Administrative Officer at the power station. Actually you'll meet her at dinner on Thursday night. She bought Scudder's Cottage when she first arrived here three years ago. She's been trying to get the Blaneys out for some time. There's been a certain amount of feeling about it locally.'

  Dalgliesh asked: 'Why does she want to gain possession? Does she propose to live there?'

  'I don't imagine so. I think she bought it as an investment and wants to sell. Even a remote cottage — particularly a remote cottage - has value on this coast. And she has some justice on her side. Blaney did say that his tenancy would be short-term. I think she feels a certain resentment that he used his wife's illness, her death, and now uses the children as an excuse for reneging on his undertaking to leave when she wanted the cottage back.'

  Dalgliesh was interested that Alice Mair apparently knew so much about local affairs. He had thought of her as essentially a private woman who would be very little concerned with her neighbours or their problems. And what about himself? In his deliberations whether to sell or keep on the mill as a holiday home he had seen it as a refuge from London, eccentric and remote, providing a temporary escape from the demands of his job and the pressures of success. But how far, even as an occasional visitor, could he isolate himself from the community, from their private tragedies no less than their dinner parties? It would be simple enough to avoid their hospitality given sufficient ruthlessness and he had never lacked that when it came to safeguarding his privacy. But the less tangible demands of neighbourliness might be less easily shrugged away. It was in London that you could live anonymously, could create your own ambience, could deliberately fabricate the persona which you chose to present to the world. In the country you lived as a social being and at the valuation of others. So he had lived in childhood and adolescence in the same country rectory, taking part each Sunday in a familiar liturgy which reflected, interpreted, and sanctified the changing seasons of the farming year. It was a world he had relinquished with small regret and he had not expected to find it again on Larksoken headland. But some of its obligations were here, deep-rooted even in this arid and unfertile earth. His aunt had lived as privately as any woman he knew, but even she had visited and tried to help the Blaneys. He thought of the man, bereft and incarcerated in that cluttered cottage behind the great dyke of shingle, listening night after night to the never-ceasing moaning of the tide, and brooding on the wrongs, real or imaginary, which could inspire that hate-filled portrait. It could hardly be healthy for him or for his children. Come to that, he thought grimly, it could hardly be healthy for Hilary Robarts. He asked: 'Does he get much official help with the children? It can't be easy.'

  'As much as he's prepared to tolerate. The local authority has arranged for the twins to attend some kind of daycare centre. They get collected most days. And Theresa, of course, is at school. She catches the bus at the end of the lane. She and Ryan between them cope with the baby. Meg Dennison - she housekeeps for the Reverend and Mrs Copley at the Old Rectory - thinks we ought to do more for them but it's difficult to see precisely what. As an ex-schoolmistress I should have thought she'd had her fill of children and I make no pretence at understanding them.' Dalgliesh remembered her whispered confidence to Theresa in the car, the child's intent face and brief transforming smile, and thought that she understood one child at least far better than she would probably claim.

  But his thoughts returned to the portrait. He said: 'It must be uncomfortable, particularly in a small community, to be the object of so much malevolence.'

  She understood at once what he meant. 'Hatred rather than malevolence, wouldn't you say? Uncomfortable and rather frightening. Not that Hilary Robarts is easily frightened. But she's becoming something of an obsession with Ryan, particularly since his wife's death. He chooses to believe that Hilary practically badgered her into her grave. It's understandable, I suppose. Human beings need to find someone to blame both for their misery and for their guilt. Hilary Robarts makes a convenient scapegoat.'

  It was a disagreeable story and coming as it did after the impact of the portrait it provoked in Dalgliesh a mixture of depression and foreboding which he tried to shake off as irrational. He was glad to let the subject drop and they drove in silence until he left her at the gate of Martyr's Cottage. To his surprise she held out her hand

  and gave him, once again, that extraordinary, attractive smile.

  'I'm glad you stopped for the children. I'll see you, then, on Thursday night. You will be able to make your own assessment of Hilary Robarts and compare the portrait with the woman.'

  As the Jaguar crested the headland Neil Pascoe was dumping rubbish into one of the two dustbins outside the caravan, two plastic bags of empty tins of soup and baby food, soiled disposable napkins, vegetable peelings and squashed cartons, already malodorous despite his careful sealing of the bags. Firmly replacing the lid he marvelled, as he always did, at the difference one girl and an eighteen-month-old baby could make to the volume of household waste. Climbing back into the caravan, he said: 'A Jag has just passed. It looks as if Miss Dalgliesh's nephew is back.'

  Amy, fitting a recalcitrant new ribbon to the ancient typewriter, didn't bother to look up.

  'The detective. Perhaps he's come to help catch the Whistler.'

  'That isn't his job. The Whistler is nothing to do with the Met Police. It's probably just a holiday. Or perhaps he's here to decide what to do with the mill. He can hardly live here and work in London.'

  'So why don't you ask him if we can have it? Rent-free, of course. We could caretake, see that no one squats. You're always saying it's antisocial for people to have second homes or leave property empty. Go on, have a word with him. I dare you. Or I will if you're too scared.'

  It was, he knew, less a suggestion than a half-serious threat. But for a moment, gladdened by her easy assumption that they were a couple, that she wasn't thinking of leaving him, he actually en
tertained the idea as a feasible solution to all their problems. Well, almost all. But a glance round the caravan restored him to reality. It was becoming difficult to remember how it had looked fifteen months ago, before Amy and Timmy had entered his life; the home-made shelves of orange boxes ranged against the wall which had held his books, the two mugs, two plates and one soup bowl, which had been adequate for his needs, neatly stacked in the cupboard, the excessive cleanliness of the small kitchen and lavatory, his bed smooth under the coverlet of knitted woollen squares, the single hanging cupboard which had been sufficient for his meagre wardrobe, his other possessions boxed and tidily stowed in the chest under the seat. It wasn't that Amy was dirty; she was continually washing herself, her hair, her few clothes. He spent hours carrying water from the tap outside Cliff Cottage to which they had access. He was continually having to fetch new Calor-gas cylinders from the general store in Lydsett village and steam from the almost constantly boiling kettle made the caravan a damp mist. But she was chronically untidy; her clothes lying where she had dropped them, shoes kicked under the table, knickers and bras stuffed beneath cushions and Timmy's toys littering the floor and table top. The make-up, which seemed to be her sole extravagance, cluttered the single shelf in the cramped shower and he would find half-empty, opened jars and bottles in the food cupboard. He smiled as he pictured Commander Adam Dalgliesh, that no doubt fastidious widower, making his way through the accumulated mess to discuss their suitability as caretakers at Larksoken Mill.

  And then there were the animals. She was incurably sentimental about wildlife and they were seldom without some maimed, deserted or starving creatures. Seagulls, their wings covered with oil, were cleansed, caged and then let free. There had been a stray mongrel whom they had named Herbert, with a large uncoordinated body and look of lugubrious disapproval who had attached himself to them for a few weeks and whose voracious appetite for dog-meat and biscuits had had a ruinous effect on the housekeeping. Happily Herbert had eventually trotted off and to Amy's distress had been seen no more, although his lead still hung on the caravan door, a limp reminder of her bereavement. And now there were the two black and white kittens found abandoned on the grass verge of the coast road as they came back in the van from Ipswich. Amy had screamed for him to stop and, scooping up the kittens, had thrown back her head and howled obscenities at the cruelty of human beings. They slept on Amy's bed, drank indiscriminately from any saucer of milk or tea put down for them, were remarkably docile under Timmy's boisterous caresses and, happily, seemed content with the cheapest kind of tinned cat food. But he was glad to have them because they too seemed to offer some assurance that Amy would stay.

  He had found her - and he used the word much as he might of finding a particularly beautiful sea-washed stone - one late June afternoon the previous year. She had been sitting on the shingle staring out to sea, her arms clasped round her knees, Timmy lying asleep on the small rug beside her. He was wearing a blue fleecy sleeping suit embroidered with ducks from which his round face seemed to have spilled over, still and pink as a porcelain, painted doll, the delicate lashes brush-tipped on the plump cheeks. And she, too, had something of the precision and contrived charm of a doll with an almost round head poised on a long delicate neck, a snub nose with a splatter of freckles, a small mouth with a full upper lip beautifully curved and a bristle of cropped hair, originally fair but with bright orange tips which caught the sun and trembled in the breeze so that the whole head seemed for a moment to have a vivid life separated from the rest of her body and, the image changing, he had seen her as a bright exotic flower. He could remember every detail of that first meeting. She had been wearing blue faded jeans, and a white sweat shirt flattened against the pointed nipples and the upturned breasts; the cotton seeming too thin a protection against the freshening onshore breeze. As he approached tentatively, wanting to seem friendly but not to alarm her, she had turned on him a long and curious glance from remarkable, slanted, violet-blue eyes.

  Standing over her, he had said: 'My name's Neil Pascoe. I live in that caravan on the edge of the cliff. I'm just going to make some tea. I wondered if you'd like a mug.'

  'I don't mind, if you're making it.' She had turned away at once and gazed again out to sea.

  Five minutes later he had slithered down the sandy cliffs, a mug of tea slopping in each hand. He heard himself say: 'May I sit down?'

  'Please yourself. The beach is free.'

  So he had lowered himself to sit beside her and together they had stared wordlessly towards the horizon. Looking back on it he was amazed both at his boldness and at the seeming inevitability and naturalness of that first encounter. It was several minutes before he had found the courage to ask her how she had got to the beach. She had shrugged.

  'By bus to the village and then I walked.'

  'It was a long way carrying the baby.'

  'I'm used to walking a long way carrying the baby.'

  And then, under his hesitant questioning, the story had come out, told by her without self-pity, almost, it had seemed, without particular interest, as if the events had happened to someone else. It was not, he supposed, an unusual tale. She was living in one of the small private hotels in Cromer on Social Security. She had been in a squat in London but had thought it would be pleasant to have some sea air for the baby for the summer. Only it wasn't working out. The woman at the hotel didn't really want kids and with summer holidays approaching could get a better rate for her rooms. She didn't think she could be turned out, but she wasn't going to stay, not with that bitch.

  He asked: 'Couldn't the baby's father help?'

  'He hasn't got a father. He did have a father - I mean, he isn't Jesus Christ. But he hasn't got one now.'

  'Do you mean that he's dead or that he's gone away?'

  'Could be either, couldn't it? Look, if I knew who he was I might know where he was, OK?'

  Then there had been another silence during which she took periodical gulps of her tea and the sleeping baby stirred and gave small pig-like grunts. After a few minutes he had spoken again.

  'Look, if you can't find anywhere else in Cromer you can share the caravan for a time.' He had added hastily: 'I mean, there is a second bedroom. It's very small, only just room for the bunk, but it would do for a time. I know it's isolated here but it's close to the beach which would be nice for the baby.'

  She had turned on him again that remarkable glance in which for the first time he had detected to his discomfiture a brief flash of intelligence and of calculation.

  'All right,' she said. 'If I can't find anywhere else I'll come back tomorrow.'

  And he had lain awake late that night half hoping, half dreading that she would return. And she had returned the following afternoon, carrying Timmy on her hip and the rest of her possessions in a backpack. She had taken over the caravan and his life. He didn't know whether what he felt for her was love, affection or pity, or a mixture of all three. He only knew that in his anxious and over-concerned life his second greatest fear was that she might leave.

  He had lived in the caravan now for just over two years, supported by a research grant from his northern university to study the effect of the Industrial Revolution on the rural industries of East Anglia. His dissertation was nearly finished but for the last six months he had almost stopped work on it and had devoted himself entirely to his passion, a crusade against nuclear power. From the caravan on the very edge of the sea he could see Larksoken Power Station stark against the skyline, as uncompromising as his own will to oppose it, a symbol and a threat. It was from the caravan that he ran People Against Nuclear Power, with its acronym PANUP, the small organization of which he was both founder and president. The caravan had been a stroke of luck. The owner of Cliff Cottage was a Canadian who, returning to his roots and seduced by nostalgia, had bought it on impulse as a possible holiday home. About fifty years earlier there had been a murder at Cliff Cottage. It had been a fairly commonplace murder, a henpecked husband at the end of his teth
er who had taken a hatchet to his virago of a wife. But if it had been neither particularly interesting nor mysterious, it had certainly been bloody. After the cottage had been bought the Canadian's wife had heard graphic accounts of spilt brains and blood-spattered walls and had declared that she had no intention of living there in summer or at any other time. Its very isolation, once attractive, now appeared both sinister and repellent. And to compound the problem, the local planning authority had shown themselves unsympathetic to the owner's over-ambitious plans for rebuilding. Disillusioned with the cottage and its problems, he had boarded up the windows and returned to Toronto, meaning eventually to come back and make a final decision about his ill-advised purchase. The previous owner had parked a large, old-fashioned caravan at the back and the Canadian had made no difficulty about letting this to Neil for two pounds a week, seeing it as a useful way of having someone to keep an eye on the property. And it was the caravan, at once his home and his office, from which Neil conducted his campaign. He tried not to think about the time, six months ahead, when his grant would finish and he would need to find work. He knew that he had somehow to stay here on the headland, to keep always in view that monstrous building which dominated his imagination as it did his view.