by Janet Tanner
The phone seemed to ring interminably and Maggie was just about to give up when a man’s voice answered.
‘Hello. Colonel Ashby speaking.’
Maggie’s heart sank. If there was one person she wanted to talk to less than her mother it was the Colonel. Ridiculous man, she thought. Why does he insist on still calling himself Colonel? He hasn’t been one for at least twenty years.
‘Harry? It’s Maggie,’ she said. ‘Can I speak to Mummy, please?’
‘Not sure where she is.’
I’m going mad! Maggie thought.
‘You mean she’s not there?’ she said aloud.
‘She’s about somewhere – in the garden I think. Said something about going to cut roses.’
‘Then do you think you could call her please?’ Maggie said.
‘Dare say. Dare say.’ But he sounded grumpy. ‘He resents having to do anything,’ Ros had once said bitterly. ‘He wishes he still had a batman to wait on him, I think. Instead, he’s got Mummy.’
Maggie waited, mentally rehearsing what she was going to say. But when her mother’s breathless silvery voice came down the line all the carefully thought-out phrases went straight out of her head.
‘Margaret – is that you?’
‘Yes, Mummy.’
‘Good gracious, what a surprise! And how clear you sound! As if you were in the next room, not in Corfu at all.’
‘I’m not,’ Maggie said.
‘Not what?’
‘Not in Corfu. I’m in Stoke-sub-Mendip.’
‘Stoke – with Rosalie, you mean?’
‘I – well, I’m not exactly with Ros …’
‘Margaret!’ There was an element of theatricality in Dulcie Ashby’s voice, a rather contrived note of cautious shock. ‘Margaret – you haven’t left Ari, have you?’
Maggie felt herself begin to tighten up. How was it that just talking to her mother could do this to her? But it was always the same – at least it had been now for years and years. There was nothing calming or comforting about Dulcie’s effect on her daughter. On the contrary, there was this irritation so intense it made her feel like a stretched wire coil just waiting to spring violently back to its original shape.
‘No, Mummy, I haven’t left Ari.’
‘Then what are you doing in England? I didn’t know you were coming over. Why didn’t you let me know? When did you arrive?’
‘Yesterday. Last night. I didn’t know I was coming myself.’
‘It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to take a holiday, you mean?’
‘Mummy.’ Maggie tried to take control of the conversation. ‘ I think Mike rang you a few days ago.’
‘Mike? You mean Michael? Ros’s Michael?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yes he did telephone. He wanted to know if I’d seen her. As if that were likely! I think I see Ros even more infrequently than I see you.’
‘Look – Mike didn’t want to worry you, but nobody seems to know where Ros is. He phoned me too, to see if she was with me. Of course she wasn’t so I’ve come over to see if I can find out what’s happened to her.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Because she seems to be missing, Mummy.’
‘Oh my goodness, not that again! What is the matter with the man, getting into such a panic? I had the police here yesterday. He’s been to them about it. Quite ridiculous!’
‘The police have been to see you?’
‘Yes. A uniformed constable called here at a most inconvenient time – just as Harry and I were having lunch. I told them I hadn’t the slightest idea where Ros was – why on earth should I? You girls have never been in the habit of telling me your movements – I am, after all, only your mother! I also told them I thought it was the most ridiculous fuss about nothing. Ros is a grown woman – she lives her own life. Not that I always agree with the way she lives it, of course, but that’s neither here nor there. Everyone seems to have divorces these days. No staying power. Probably due to the ridiculous marriages they make in the first place.’
Maggie sensed the incipient criticism and bristled. But she had no intention of being drawn into an argument on the subject just now.
‘You haven’t seen Ros then, or heard from her?’
‘I have not. But as I say, that is nothing new. And as for Michael Thompson, there’s no earthly reason why Rosalie should tell him her every move. It’s not as though he’s her husband, is it?’
‘Mummy …’
‘Look, Margaret, this really isn’t the best time for me. I’m having a coffee morning in aid of Help the Aged and I have a hundred and one things to do. I was just trying to cut some roses when you rang, but the poor things have been absolutely ruined by the rain. And it’s been so cold! The buds just won’t open properly and when they do they’re spotted and stale-looking. Now, when are you coming over? I will be seeing you, I suppose, whilst you are in England?’
‘Of course you’ll see me,’ Maggie said irritably. ‘I’ll ring again when you’re not so busy.’
‘Do that. After dinner tonight might be a good time. There’s a programme Harry likes to watch on BBC2 – something to do with current affairs and between you and me it’s dreadfully boring. We’ll arrange something then. And for heaven’s sake, darling, do stop fussing about Ros. I’m quite certain she is perfectly all right.’
‘Yes, Mummy. ’ Bye for now.’
Maggie replaced the receiver and stood for a moment feeling like a wrung-out dish rag. At least her mother was not worrying about Ros. How could she ever have imagined for one moment that she would?
She has the brain of a pea, Maggie thought viciously. How on earth had poor Dad put up with her? No wonder he’d gone to an early grave, disillusioned no doubt with the discovery that the beautiful young woman he’d fallen in love with had turned out to have no real substance beneath that decorative exterior and the excessively charming manner that made fools of sensible men.
‘She’s like a baked Alaska,’ Ros had said once. ‘It looks good but when you bite into it there’s nothing there, just melted ice cream.’
Maggie, who had always admired what she thought of as Ros’s sparkling wit, had laughed because it really was very funny, although she was not at all sure, then, that one should say such cutting things about one’s own mother. Now, however, she felt she knew exactly what Ros had meant.
‘Thank goodness we take after Daddy!’ Ros had said on another occasion, and this was a sentiment Maggie had whole-heartedly agreed with. Just as long as they did take after the father they had both adored. Sometimes Maggie had nightmares thinking she had spotted one of her mother’s infuriating traits in her own nature …
But at least the conversation had told her one thing, she thought, going back into the kitchen to make another cup of coffee. Whatever impression they had given Mike, the police were investigating. At least they had been to see Dulcie – though whether they would pursue their enquiries, now that she had told them she was of the opinion there was nothing whatever to worry about, was quite another matter.
As she drank her coffee Maggie’s hand hovered over her cigarette packet. She shouldn’t really … it was much too early in the day … but the circumstances were really exceptional. I really will give up when I go home, Maggie decided, then, her conscience pacified, took out a cigarette and lit it.
She’d been right first time, it was too early in the day. The tobacco tasted stale on her tongue but she smoked it anyway, thinking about what she should do next.
Book a hire car – that was a number-one priority. Without transport there was very little she could do. The thought reminded her that Ros’s car too was missing – just about the only hopeful indication so far. Had the police circulated the number? she wondered. Would they be keeping a lookout for it? But she couldn’t imagine it somehow, and it wasn’t as if a Golf GTi would attract much attention. If Ros had had flashy taste in cars it might have been easier. But she didn’t. She liked something fast, reliable and easy to
park. Functional, like everything else in her life.
Maggie sighed. Perhaps she should take a leaf out of Ros’s book and organise herself and her life methodically. She drew one of the envelopes she had opened earlier across the table towards her, scrabbled in the drawer for a pencil, and began to make a list of what she intended to do.
1. Book hire car
2. Phone for taxi, if necessary, to go and collect it
3. See Brendan
4. Go to Vandina
5. Take any information to police and try to shake them
up
6. Confer with Mike
7. Ring Mummy again
She drew on her cigarette, daunted suddenly by the day that lay ahead of her. In Corfu she would have had nothing more taxing to do than helping her mother-in-law with washing the carpet, and then she would have had the rest of the day to sunbathe, swim, read, or anything that took her fancy.
I was right, she thought, to try and organise myself as Ros does. I’ve become so lazy that if I didn’t nothing would get done.
And then the irony of the situation occurred to her. Ros might be the organised one but it was Ros who was missing, whilst she, Maggie, the wanderer, who had never had any particular ambition but to marry the man she loved, was here trying to rationalise a situation that was quite beyond her!
Chapter Six
At eleven o’clock Brendan Newman was still in bed. He rarely surfaced before midday and today was no exception. What, after all, was there to get up for? It wasn’t as though he had a job to go to – not, of course, that he had been very keen to get up in the days when he had had a job.
Brendan was, he had always proudly maintained, a night owl, much at his best after dark. He never really came to life until he had had his first whisky of the day, but when everyone else was ready to fall into bed Brendan would still be going strong, still tipping the bottle and still yarning with anyone who would listen to him. In the old days there had been plenty. His name was familiar to everyone within a forty-mile radius, and the fact that he was a radio personality had given him star status. But even now, when newcomers to the area would ask ‘Brendan who?’ he could still command an audience at any club or party.
When Brendan was on form there was something almost magical about the way he could talk, the words spilling out in a torrent that could be amusing as well as informative – somehow he managed to sound like an expert on almost any subject that was raised – and to talk to him was to find the conversation hijacked at every turn, but people rarely minded. With his Irish ancestry Brendan was a superb raconteur – ‘Sure an’ I kissed the Blarney Stone. What else would a true son of Ireland do?’ he would say, exaggerating the rolling lilt so that it sounded as if he had left County Cork just last week instead of when he was five years old.
In the beginning the powers that be at the local radio station where he had worked had been doubtful about employing someone with so marked a ‘foreign’accent. It was their policy to use presenters with a faint local burr – quite the vogue since the demise of the ubiquitous ‘BBC Oxford English’ accent. But Brendan had blarneyed his way into the station and into the hearts and homes of the listeners. Without a doubt he would have gone far if he had had as much self-discipline as he had charm. His own programme quickly followed the first tentatively arranged fill-ins, he had acquired a cult following and national stations had begun to show an interest.
But Brendan had let vanity and licentiousness spoil it all for him. Instead of going home to his bed to be fresh for the next day’s work he had chosen to hang out in the sort of places where everyone wanted to fête and admire him, buy him drinks and listen to his endless fund of stories. And before long his way of life had caught up with him. Jaded and hung-over he had begun turning in too late to do the proper and very necessary preparations for his programme. He missed interviews, he lost tapes, he was extremely rude on air to some of the people who called with answers for his jokey daily phone-in quiz. Several times he had failed to turn up at the studio at all, and one day when his producer and a reporter went to the bachelor flat in town, which he used during the working week, to find out what had happened to him they had discovered him still fast asleep – not in bed, but in the bath!
‘What the hell are you doing there?’ the producer, badly shaken because he had been momentarily convinced that Brendan was dead, of hypothermia, if not an overdose, had demanded.
‘Sleeping! What do you think I’m bloody well doing?’ Brendan, who had a thundering headache and cramp in both legs, had roared back.
‘But why in the bath, for Chrissakes?’
‘It’s nearer the loo if I want to pee or be sick.’
The producer was beginning to realise that Brendan could be as disgusting as he could be charming.
‘Don’t you know we are trying to run a radio station and you are supposed to be on air in fifteen minutes?’ he had yelled.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be there.’
‘You bloody well won’t! You’re in no fit state. God alone knows what you’d say. Bruce is going to cover for you.’
‘Brace Stapleton? That spineless, boring little git … ?’
‘At least he’s there! He’s pleasant and he’s polite and people like him. He reminds them of their favourite son.’
‘You make me puke!’
‘No, Brendan, the drink does that. And I promise you, if you don’t cut it out and start taking your job seriously you’ll be out of the station so fast your feet won’t touch the ground.’
‘You wouldn’t do that to me. I’m Brendan Newman, remember?’
‘I don’t care who you are, pal. You can’t get away with this sort of carry-on and you’d better start believing it.’
Brendan had sworn at him, using the most colourful and expressive words in his vocabulary, which, even in his present condition, was impressive. It did not impress his producer, however, or the board of directors called together to discuss his case.
It was a pity, they said – Brendan could have been a wonderful asset. He had talent, without a doubt. But the way he was going he was fast becoming a disaster area. Whatever the repercussions he would have to go.
Brendan, marginally more sober, had kicked and argued and threatened, without any success, to sue for wrongful dismissal. He had found himself out of a job and with the sort of reputation that did not bode well for getting another one.
During his glory days in the world of entertainment Brendan had acquired an Equity card and he used it now. At first, because his name was well known, he got a certain amount of work, mostly doing voice-overs for advertisements and trailers, and he had one foray into pantomime, playing the King in a small local professional production of Old King Cole. But as the legend of his unreliability grew and people began to forget his one-time celebrity status, even this work began to dry up and Brendan found he had got what he had always thought he prized most – plenty of time to do exactly what he wanted. If he drank and yarned the night away there was no longer any need to fall out of bed next day, shave the stubble from his increasingly raddled face, and turn in for a day’s work.
It had not, however, made him happy. The morose side of his nature, previously well concealed beneath his personable jovial exterior, had begun to take over, and Brendan blamed the rest of the world for his slide into obscurity and the fact that he no longer had the ready money to live the life of luxury he had become accustomed to, wining and dining without a thought to the expense, taking extravagant foreign holidays and running his flashy sports car. He blamed the radio station, he blamed the fickle public, he blamed fate. But most of all he blamed Ros.
‘I hate that bitch,’ he would say when the drink was in him. ‘She was nothing when I met her. I gave her everything. God knows I loved her. I set her up on a pedestal and worshipped her. And see what she’s done to me!’
‘What did she do?’ newcomers to Brendan’s circle would ask – old friends knew better than to lead him on.
‘Lied
to me, deceived me, cuckolded me and made me look a complete fool. I’d have done anything in the world for that woman – she used me up and when there was nothing left she didn’t want me any more. I hate her for what she’s done to me, but yet I love her still. Sometimes I think I’ll kill her, just so no one else can have her. Sure an’ it’s the only way I’ll ever have any peace of mind now, for the thought of her with another man drives me out of my mind!’
He was a tragic figure, the newcomers would think, his romantic heart broken, his whole life destroyed by his love for a faithless woman.
His old cronies, however, though they still enjoyed his company, took a more pragmatic view. Brendan had no one but himself to blame for losing Ros, they thought, just as he had no one but himself to blame for his ruined career and the mess that was his whole life.
This morning Brendan had woken a little earlier than usual. He came out of his heavy drink-induced slumber to find the sun streaming in, hurting his eyes when he opened them and making his head throb unbearably. He closed his eyes again and swore.
Why the hell did the sun have to be shining this morning just when he was feeling so bloody awful? It hadn’t shone for the last week and he didn’t suppose it would shine again for another. But this morning here it was, unrelentingly piercing, even with his eyes closed. Of course the worst of it was he hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains last night. He couldn’t even remember undressing, though he supposed he must have done since he was now clad in nothing but his underwear.
Funny, he thought, the way you could do things and not remember you’d done them. It was happening to him more and more often these days, whole chunks of memory simply disappearing, as if his mind had totally blanked out. It had happened for years, of course, when he’d had too much to drink, and he’d lose a whole evening, have no recollection of where he’d been or who he’d been with, but this was different and more disturbing because it was more far-reaching.
