by Ruth Rendell
“Will he be back by tomorrow evening?”
“Yes, of course. He’ll be back tonight, any minute now, I should think.”
“Leonora, tell me about the letter Poppy Vasari wrote to Susannah.”
“Oh dear, I wish you’d forget it. I wish I’d never told you. You’re making far too much of it. Poppy—is that her name?—Vasari wrote to Daddy and Susannah and told them you made your living by selling dangerous drugs. I think she called them Class-A drugs. She said you’d given a hallucinogenic tablet—those were the words she used—to this Mulvanney man and he’d gone crazy and stuck his head in a beehive. Well, that part had been in the papers. There was a photocopy in with the letter of an account of the inquest from a newspaper. Susannah showed it to me—well, I was sort of reading it over her shoulder. She said she didn’t think she’d even tell Daddy. She was quite upset.”
“What did you say to her?”
“As a matter of fact, I said I thought it was probably libel putting things like that in a letter.”
“Did she tell your father?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask and he never said. She told Magnus.”
“She did what?”
“Guy, please don’t get in a state. She told Magnus because he’s a solicitor. She rang him up at his office and asked him what one ought to do about letters like that. She meant should she tell the police, I think.”
“Oh, Christ,” said Guy. “Christ.”
“Anyway, you needn’t worry because he said the best thing to do with it was burn it. I suppose he thought it was a poison-pen letter, though it was in fact signed.”
“No doubt old Skull-face told your mother.”
“Possibly. Well, yes, I expect he did. My mother and I never discussed it. I wish you wouldn’t call Magnus that. Susannah and I talked about it quite a bit. She’s very understanding, you know. I told her we all smoked grass in those days and she said she had too, and I said I expect you had dealt in drugs when you were younger. It was the background you came from and the people you associated with—you didn’t mind my saying that, did you, Guy?”
“I don’t mind anything you say,” he said.
“All Susannah said was that it might have mattered if I was seriously thinking of marrying you but I wasn’t.”
“She said that?”
“There isn’t any point in going over and over it. It made no difference to the way I felt. Guy, you know how I feel, I’ve told you often enough. Listen, I can hear William coming in. We’ll see you tomorrow night, right?”
“I’ll phone you first thing in the morning.”
“No, don’t do that. I shan’t be here. I’ll see you about seven-thirty tomorrow.”
He was going out to dinner with Bob Joseph and a man who was chairman of a Spanish hotel chain. They were meeting at a restaurant in Chelsea not far from the one where he had dined on the evening he had seen the street person who might have been Linus. Guy walked down to the Old Brompton Road. What had Leonora meant, she wouldn’t be there “first thing in the morning”? She was there now. Where could she possibly be going? Then he realized. Tomorrow would be September 6 and very likely the first day of her school term. The children would be returning to school tomorrow. She would be going to work.
But, wait a minute. That was a bit odd, going back to school as a teacher when you intended to get married less than two weeks later and take a fortnight off. Teachers never did that. Teachers were expected to get married and go on honeymoons in the long school holidays. But of course, it meant only one thing: she wasn’t getting married, she had never really intended to get married. It was all a fantasy. Was it perhaps designed to make him jealous? If so, it had certainly succeeded. He smiled to himself. Women, he thought, were like that.
He turned out of the Earl’s Court Road and began looking for Linus. In a doorway, though not the doorway of the health-food shop, a man lay asleep, curled up in the foetal position, his face and head covered by a newspaper. Guy thought it was the same man but he couldn’t be sure. Nor could he bring himself to wake the man. The realization he had come to about Leonora and her fake or dream wedding made him feel so happy and buoyant that his interest in Linus was temporarily weakened. There was nothing anyway that he could do about it. To lift up the newspaper and look at the sleeping man’s face seemed to him an outrageous act, a piece of insensitive impertinence. This evidently was Linus’s beat. He would find him again.
A taxi came and he got into it. He thought of Susannah with hatred, picturing her in that flat in her smart black trousers and top. She was leaning over the banisters and smiling. He followed this welcoming presence into the living room. The white card with the silver border was on the mantelpiece. It was probably an invitation to someone else’s wedding. Yes, that would be it. It was an invitation to another couple’s wedding, the ceremony had already taken place, and because the card was now therefore useless, Janice had picked it up and thrown it out as she went to make tea. This explanation satisfied him completely.
Flowers, chocolates, wine—or a real present? He had never seen her eat chocolates. She was a health foodie. Flowers had to be put in water, which would mean her going away and leaving him with Newton. A real present could only be jewellery for her, earrings, for instance, and he sensed this would somehow be out of place, over the top, ostentatious. After all, unimportant as William Newton might be, a mere, stooge or puppet set up by Anthony and Susannah, it was his home, he still no doubt thought of Leonora as engaged to him, even as due to marry him on Saturday week. Guy didn’t think he could give Leonora a pair of earrings worth, say, three hundred pounds, in Newton’s presence.
He settled for champagne. A single bottle of Piper Heidsieck. Should he wear a suit? He couldn’t imagine Newton even possessing a suit. Maybe designer jeans and a sweater would be best. It wasn’t going to be warm. Guy realized he was as nervous and uneasy about the evening ahead as if he had never dined out in his life. Would there be other people there? If only he could phone her. There was an idea in his mind of finally winning her away from Newton on this evening, carrying her off under his nose, a happy victim of kidnap, bringing her home here forever.
A night’s sleep had cooled his anger. He no longer felt he hated Susannah. He blamed her, he never wanted to see her again, if he had met her in the street he would have passed her by with head averted, but his hatred had gone. After all, she had failed. In spite of her vindictive motives, she hadn’t succeeded in turning Leonora against him. Leonora herself said it had made no difference. Susannah had interfered inexcusably in his life, but her interference no longer mattered, had never mattered, it was simply of no account.
Yet his discovery altered the situation. Rachel, designated Chuck’s victim, was very obviously not guilty. Rachel had never spoken to or even heard of Poppy Vasari, Rachel had never been told about his activities as a dealer, so Rachel did not merit death. But Guy, not usually cowardly, balked at saying so to Danilo. Having changed his mind about Robin Chisholm and been roughly handled by Danilo on account of it, he hesitated to ring Danilo up and say he had been wrong about Rachel too.
It wasn’t as if he could even say, “Forget Rachel Lingard, Susannah Chisholm is the one.” Susannah wasn’t the one, he didn’t want Susannah killed, he just never wanted to speak to her again. Dressing for the dinner party ahead, deciding finally—the sun having come out—on a pair of white linen trousers and a black silk shirt with white-and-cream-patterned V-necked silk pullover, Guy came to the conclusion that there was no need, at least at present, to tell Danilo anything. Rachel, after all, was out of the country, safe in some Spanish resort. Chuck probably knew this, or knew she had gone away, and would do nothing until she returned on September 15.
Just before he left, he poured himself a stiff brandy, then another. He needed it and there might not be much on offer in Georgiana Street. The taxi waited while he went into the wine shop and bought the champagne. He was going to be early. He got the driver to set him down in
Mornington Crescent and began to walk the rest of the way, cradling the heavy bottle that was wrapped up in mauve tissue paper. It was still only twenty past seven when he got there. The houses here had scrubby front gardens, tiny plots of brown grass and dusty bushes. Steps went up to the front door and there was a deep basement. In the front garden of the house where Newton lived was planted a pole with an estate agent’s board attached to it on which was printed: ONE-BEDROOM LUXURY FLAT and SOLD, SUBJECT TO CONTRACT.
There were five flats, one on each floor. Guy, before he even rang Newton’s bell, had a very good idea what the “luxury,” as described by the estate agent, would amount to. A bathroom that actually had tiles on the walls, and some sort of central heating. He didn’t much like to think of Leonora living in this place, a back street that looked as if it would be unsafe at night, a grey brick house whose paintwork needed renewing.
Newton’s voice, coming out of the grid, instead of asking who it was, said, “Come up,” and the lock on the door buzzed.
A steep staircase and two long flights to climb. Another one of those dreary walk-ups. Newton was on the landing, outside an open front door, waiting for him. He said, “Hi,” and held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Guy shook hands with him. He was glad he hadn’t put a suit on. Newton wore jeans and a grey jumper with a hole in one of the elbows. His longish ginger hair stuck up like a punk’s, only it grew that way, the effect hadn’t been achieved with styling gel.
Leonora was in the living room, looking awkward, Guy thought, or embarrassed perhaps. As well she might in this barn of a room with a surprisingly low ceiling and two small sash windows giving onto the grey façade opposite. He had got over all his heart-turnings on the way upstairs and advanced towards her with no more diffidence than if she had been Celeste. She kissed him, a light peck. Of course she would, with Newton watching. He handed the champagne to Newton, who said, “How grand. What are we celebrating?”
That made Guy smile. The little red-haired man was really very unsophisticated. Guy felt powerful, in control. He said kindly, “Quite a lot of people drink champagne as an aperitif these days, you know. There doesn’t have to be anything to celebrate.”
“Oh, I see. Then it would be appropriate to drink it now?”
“Don’t be absurd, William,” said Leonora, looking uncomfortable, though Guy couldn’t see what was absurd about what he’d said.
He was taking a good look round the room. The furniture was the kind of thing rejected by comfortably off middle-aged achievers and passed on to poor young relatives. He assessed the carpet as coming from one of those sales held after a store fire. You could even see the burnt patch in one corner. Up on the wall, above a Victorian fireplace of cast iron and floral tiles, a fireplace that was there not because Newton had found it in an antique shop but because it had been put in with the rest of the dilapidated fittings in 1895, hung the swords.
They were crossed at the point Guy remembered was called the forte. One was bare, the other in a rather worn and shabby embroidered scabbard. They recalled to Guy that dream he had had in which he was fighting Con Mulvanney with swords in Kensington Gardens and had stabbed him through the heart. He remembered Newton had said he wanted to sell the swords. He had also, on that occasion after the cinema, said something about selling his flat.
“Is that this flat that’s been sold?” he had begun to ask when Leonora came back with three glasses (one champagne flute, one hock glass, and something that looked as if designed to hold half a grapefruit) on a tray. Guy nearly offered to open the champagne, but stopped himself because he wanted to see Newton make a mess of it and in Leonora’s presence.
She was looking worried and far from her best. Gone was the elegant fashionable young woman in the dark-blue-and-pink linen suit, the pretty stockings and shoes. Being with Newton simply didn’t suit her. That was an inescapable conclusion, anyone would see it. Those white pants would only look good if freshly laundered each time they were worn, and as for that faded sweat-shirt … Her hair was hauled onto the back of her head with one of those awful crocodile clips. The red glass roses hanging from her ears looked ridiculous with the rest of the get-up.
Newton opened the champagne without mishap. It must have been one of the easy bottles, Guy thought, you sometimes got them. They began to talk about the sale of Newton’s flat and Guy asked him where he was going to live. He asked where he was going to live but Newton said, “I expect we shall buy a house.”
Guy ignored that “we.” “You don’t want to leave it too long. Remember, property’s the best investment. Even in a recession in the property market it’s a great mistake to sell your home and invest the proceeds in something else.”
“I’ll remember that, Guy,” said Newton.
Guy was quite well-informed about the property market and he talked some more about it. He said something about his own plans for moving, perhaps of buying a house at the “best end” of Ladbroke Grove. What did Leonora think of Stanley Crescent, the abode, he had heard, of TV personalities and one world-famous singer, a million-pound Italianate villa in fashionable Stanley Crescent? William said he hardly supposed what Leonora thought would make any difference to whether Guy bought or not. He said it coldly and Guy wondered if the two of them had been quarrelling before he arrived. Leonora went off to do the final dinner preparations and Guy changed the subject. He intended to be tactful, to behave well while he could.
“Very autumnal this evening,” he said, looking towards the window.
“The nights will soon be drawing in,” said Newton.
Guy looked narrowly at him to see if he was mocking him, but it was all right. Newton’s expression was both serious and pleasant. He began to talk about the summer that was past, the sunniest of the century.
It wasn’t much of a meal. If people couldn’t or wouldn’t cook properly, Guy thought, it was better to buy smoked salmon and a cold roast chicken for guests than attempt strange meat loaves. He was even more dubious when Leonora told him there was no meat in the loaf, it was all soya and herbs. The only good thing was the wine, a surprisingly good claret, of which Newton actually produced two bottles. Guy complimented him on the wine. Drink, as it always did, made him feel a lot better. Just the same, he knew it would be impossible for him to pass a passive evening here and to go home alone. The brandy, the wine had wonderfully clarified his mind. He saw that this was the crunch, the time had come. But it wasn’t this decision of his that was responsible for the change in atmosphere, the rapidly ensuing trouble. It was the question he asked Leonora, in all innocence, about her first day back at school.
“It’s a shame you’ve had to cook. We could have gone out to eat.”
This remark was partly prompted by the dessert she served, a home-made sorbet, the colour and texture of three-day old snow but with large ice crystals in it like splinters of glass. The sorbet was as tasteless as snow too, though Guy guessed it was supposed to be lemon.
“Why is it a shame, Guy? Because the food’s so awful? I’m sorry, I know I’m not much of a cook. But William’s worse except with curry. His curry’s marvellous, only we didn’t know if you liked it.”
The idea of a man possibly being expected to cook for guests rather shocked him. But he didn’t say so. He hastened to assure his Leonora—that she should apologize to him!— that he only meant she must have had a hard day at school, today being the first day of the new term.
She reddened. It was years since he had seen her blush like that. Newton didn’t seem to notice. He was busy with the mousetrap cheese, which was all that was on offer. But he looked up and said, with his mouth full.
“She hasn’t been in today. She’s given up—remember?”
Remember? What did the man mean? “Leo, have you left your job? You didn’t tell me.”
“I resigned,” she said, “as soon as I knew … I mean, I resigned in June.”
“What were you going to say?” he said. “As soon as you knew what?”
Newton picked up the wine bottle. He looked at Leonora, who shook her head, filled Guy’s glass and then his own. He took a long slow drink, said, “As soon as she knew I was going to work for BBC North-West.”
Guy looked at her. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s no particular reason why you should need to.”
Newton could be quite simple and innocent-sounding and, suddenly, he could become crisp. The crispness was starting to gel into ice. “I have a new job. In Manchester. BBC North-West Studios are in Manchester. Therefore, in the nature of things, since I’m not a happy commuter, I shall live there. Are you answered?”
“You, yes,” Guy said. “I don’t see why Leonora has to give up her job because you’re going to live in Manchester.”
“Don’t you? You’re rather slow sometimes. I’ve noticed it before. Let me explain in simple language. Leonora has given up her job in West London because she intends to get another one in Manchester. She is going to live in Manchester with me. From the end of this month. Leonora is going to live with me because she will be married to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Leonora?”
“Because she’s afraid of your reaction. She’s afraid of what you’ll do. And who can blame her? Now let’s talk about something else. Let’s change the subject. We can revert to any of those things you’re so fascinated by, house buying or the autumnal weather, any bloody thing, only for God’s sake let’s not get our tempers running any higher.”
He was hardly going the right way about reducing Guy’s temper. Guy jumped up. Before he could speak, Leonora said, “Please stop quarrelling, the pair of you. Please stop now. I should have told you, Guy, but William’s right, you’re so violent.”
“Would you expect me to take it lying down? That he’s preparing to take you away? To take you up to the north of England?”
“Why not? She’ll be my wife. I’ll be her husband. If she’d got a job in Manchester, I’d have followed her. The idea of being married surely is that you share each other’s lives.”
