Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  Lewis pictured Blanche, put out with rubbish one Thursday morning, and he laughed.

  The terms of the will allowed Lewis one month in which to make up his mind. For the first week he kept the revelation to himself. If he decided to refuse the proposition, there would be no need ever to tell anyone. Throughout the week, the dilemma consumed him and, as he veered from acceptance to refusal and back again, he became increasingly furious with his would-be benefactor. How dare she, and why had she, put him in such an invidious position? It wasn’t a decision that could be made rationally, by making lists of pros and cons. If he tried to think of it as a money-making scheme, his investment was ten years of his life. Faustian, that’s what it was.

  He rewound to the day before Mr Newman read the will. What had been his life plan? What had he been striving towards? There was no point in deceiving himself – he had no vision, no goal for the future. A few elements were there, ill-defined and drifting, killing time until fate anchored them or blew them away. Kirsty. And his parents – mainly because no one else had included them in their plan. Teaching. Children of his own. Tessa stood there too, in perfect focus.

  ‘Are you all right?’ his mother asked. ‘Nothing wrong at school? You haven’t fallen out with Kirsty, have you? You seem to be in a world of your own these days.’

  They were in the kitchen, waiting for Dick Swinburne to get back from work. Lewis watched her, methodically setting out the cutlery and putting three plates to warm on the rack over the cooker, wishing that, together, they could examine a future where he married Kirsty and moved to Manchester, visiting them in the school holidays or at Christmas. A future where she and his father ‘managed’ without him. For all he knew it could be the making of all of them.

  *

  Lewis went to Manchester to talk to Kirsty.

  ‘What a grotesque thing to do,’ she said. ‘Why would an old woman want to play games with a young man’s life? It’s bizarre.’

  For days Lewis had been trying to solve this puzzle. Mrs Channing, although frequently caustic, was not malevolent. She must have thought that forcing him to make this choice would be in some way beneficial. Might she have done it as a way of compelling him to face his future, of jolting him off his comfortable fence?

  It was clear from Kirsty’s tone that she assumed he would reject the proposition. ‘What I don’t understand is why you never told me about her or her wretched house. It was obviously a huge thing in your life.’ She paused. ‘It makes me wonder if I really know you at all.’

  ‘It wasn’t really a “huge thing” as you put it. I used to call in now and again, like anyone might call in on an elderly neighbour.’

  Her sceptical gaze stopped him from perjuring himself further and he tried another approach. ‘It’s a fantastic old house. Sort of magic.’ He stared at a swirl of undissolved instant coffee, floating on the surface of his drink. ‘You’d love it. Of course it needs—’

  ‘Stop. Before you go any further, you should hear what I have to say. I’ve been offered a promotion. A real step up the career ladder. It’s a fantastic opportunity but it would mean moving to the firm’s Newcastle office.’

  Now he understood. ‘Was this on the cards at Easter? I knew you were distracted but I didn’t say anything.’

  She raised her eyebrows, reminding him that he was in no position to demand justification for her keeping her secret. ‘Maybe we don’t really know each other at all.’

  *

  Two months later, with Tessa’s encouragement, his parents’ misgivings and Kirsty’s regretful farewell ringing in his ears, Lewis took possession of Cranwell Lodge.

  IV

  1976

  Chapter 18

  Tessa poured a glass of wine and stared at the blank sheet of paper protruding from her typewriter. The phone rang and she jumped, knocking over her glass. ‘Shit.’ She righted it, but it was too late to prevent a rivulet of white wine running across the table and reaching the stack of paper at the side of her typewriter. ‘Fuck.’

  The caller was Lewis, asking what time she would be arriving on Saturday. Saturday. She glanced at the calendar, pinned above her desk. ‘Home’ was undeniably written there in her own handwriting. ‘I can’t see me getting there before mid-afternoon. And I’ll have to come back on Sunday, after lunch. I’ve got something on in the evening.’

  Lewis arranged to pick her up from the station adding ‘It hardly seems worth your coming.’

  ‘One of those things, I’m afraid,’ she said.

  Were Tessa to star in the film of her life, here the camera would home in on her hands, pounding away on the typewriter, whizzing the carriage back at the tring of the tinny bell before wrenching page after page from the rollers, scrunching them up and lobbing them towards the overflowing waste-paper basket. A sweeping shot across the floor would reveal dozens of discarded pages and the audience would understand – here was a writer in full spate. But Tessa’s waste-paper basket was empty and the floor un-littered.

  Writing the first book had been a breeze. She had completed it in six months, whilst holding down a full-time job. When it was published, the newspapers had loved the whole thing – not only the novel itself but also the circumstances surrounding its publication. She had given numerous interviews explaining how she had infiltrated her manuscript into the pile waiting on the editor’s desk; how she – the anonymous office girl – had been given the job of typing the letter to Tess Swinburne, congratulating her on her work and making an offer for The House on the Hill. The book had remained near the top of the best-seller list for weeks and, on the strength of its success and the generous advance offered for a second novel, she had given up her job.

  The second book had taken over two years to complete and had been a flop. By that time she was renting a tiny flat of her own. The privacy and agreeable surroundings, the pleasant view across Hampstead back gardens, seemed to dissipate her creativity. It was as though, spared the discomforts of the rush hour and the hurly-burly of the office, her imagination had withered.

  She had adapted the first book – a tale of an unconsummated marriage, homosexuality and incest, set in the years running up to the First World War – from Mrs Channing’s diaries. The diaries’ sketchy entries had hinted at disappointment and humiliation but there were few concrete facts. Tessa had managed to ‘join the dots’, coming up with a melodramatic version of what might have taken place. Working at Ward & Cox had taught her that readers couldn’t get enough sex and scandal. So she’d made sure to incorporate plenty of both.

  The critics panned the follow-up, saying that it was lacklustre, with unconvincing characters and a formulaic storyline. ‘Not a patch on Swinburne’s debut novel.’ To have any hope of redeeming her reputation, her next book would have to be a knockout.

  Confronting the blank page and contemplating failure became demoralising and so she dreamed up ‘essential’ tasks. She painted her bedroom chocolate brown, hoping to alleviate her insomnia; she spent whole afternoons searching for a book that she was sure, or almost sure, she owned and which she suddenly had to re-read; she washed dust off the leaves of houseplants; she cooked elaborate meals, then found she had no appetite.

  By midday, Tessa ached with boredom. A walk, that’s what she needed. Or, better still, something worthy yet diverting. A visit to the British Museum or the National Gallery.

  She caught the number twenty-four bus and climbed to the upper deck, enjoying the tacit camaraderie of her fellow travellers as they made their stop-start progress towards Trafalgar Square. The bus approached the British Museum but there was too much spring in the air to spend the afternoon with mummies and shards of pottery and she remained seated, finally getting off halfway down Charing Cross Road. Unable to resist, she went into Foyles, following the signs that led to the fiction department. There were three copies of The House on the Hill nestling amongst the ‘S’s’ on the endless shelves, but no sign of Master and Servant.

  Perhaps she was no more than a ‘one-h
it wonder’. It had been a shock when her last bank statement revealed how little remained in her savings account. If she failed to come up with a winning idea within, say, the next three months she would have to look for a job.

  A poster, fixed to the railings outside the National Portrait Gallery caught her attention. It was advertising Hope, the current exhibition by a celebrated photographer, darling of the Sunday supplements. It might be worth a quick look – faces were always fascinating – and she could take advantage of the ‘Ladies’ in the basement.

  Startling images, some in colour, some black and white, extended across the off-white walls. The photographer, famous enough to command a string of eminent sitters, had instead directed his lens at hopeful unknowns who had, so far, failed to make it to the top of their chosen fields. Delighted to have happened across such an absorbing show, she moved from picture to picture, inspecting the defiant faces, admiring their self-belief.

  She was in the second room when she spotted Tony Rundle scowling at her from one of the pictures. Positive yet disbelieving, she checked the caption. The Mighty Handful; Bristol 1974. Yes, she was sure that was the name of Rundle’s band. A couple of years ago they had won the local heat of a national talent contest and Lewis had sent her a cutting from the Gazette. She calculated that Rundle must be in his mid-thirties now, but his face hadn’t altered. The same sneer; the same khaki-coloured eyes beneath those rather effeminate eyebrows. He was wearing his trademark black leather jacket, glowering at the camera, guitar slung low across his hips. She glanced around the gallery, suppressing the impulse to tell everyone that the moody guitarist on the left of the picture had been her first lover.

  ‘What time’s the London train due in?’ Although Lewis already knew, he double-checked with the man on the gate.

  ‘Ten minutes, sir. Platform two. Up the steps and over the bridge.’

  He bought a platform ticket and crossed the footbridge, peering down the tracks for the first sign of the train. Tessa’s visits were never plain sailing, but whenever she stepped down from the train his spirits soared, as if he had received a shot of a drug that gave his plod-along routine a boost of perilous excitement.

  Dick and Peggy Swinburne assumed that, on her infrequent visits home, Tessa would spend every available minute with them. It was also taken for granted that Lewis would come to Salisbury Road to see his sister, bringing his wife and daughter with him. These gatherings were an ordeal for all of them, leaving his mother exhausted for days. Added to that, Andrea and Tessa didn’t get on. ‘She turns up once in a blue moon then expects us to drop everything. And she never says a word of thanks for all you do for your parents. It must be wonderful to sit in London, being the Famous Writer, no time to spare for anyone but with everyone at your beck and call.’

  Lewis appreciated his wife’s position but, even so, he wished she could be more charitable. He explained that Tessa was … well, just Tessa, but his indulgence intensified Andrea’s resentment and lined him up as the secondary target of her attack. ‘Hiltler was just Hitler, but that doesn’t excuse his behaviour.’

  ‘How’s life at the Bates Motel?’ Tessa asked as, arms linked, they walked back to the car. ‘Never mind. Another three years and you can take the money and run. I only hope it was worth doing time for.’

  ‘C’mon, Tess. That’s a bit harsh. You were pretty keen for me to take it on if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Yes, but only because I saw it as one small step for Lewis Swinburne. Once you’d cut the apron strings, I assumed you’d wriggle out of that ten-year malarkey, sell the place and get the hell out. A clever lawyer would have found a loophole.’

  Tessa wasn’t the first to suggest this. After he and Andrea became engaged, she had, in a more subtle way, talked about the same thing. But something – possibly the alarming prospect of self-determination – had prevented Lewis from following it up. In the end, he found it simpler to intimate that the conditions of the will had been tested and found watertight.

  ‘Look, someone has to be around for Mum and Dad.’ Lewis didn’t believe this any more but trotting it out had become a habit, useful ammunition against accusations of inertia. ‘If I’ve got to live in this town, I’d rather live at Cranwell Lodge than anywhere else.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Let’s not go over it again. Tell me about you. How’s number three shaping up? Got a title yet?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going to call it Hope. It’s going pretty well.’

  He was glad. The reviews of Master and Servant had knocked her back and he was relieved that she’d scraped herself off the floor and started another book.

  He was also nervous.

  Before he was halfway through the first chapter of The House on the Hill he’d realised that it was Mrs Channing’s story. The old lady hadn’t revealed much of her history to him but she’d made references to her time in India and the Far East, hinted at an unsatisfactory marriage and regret at her childlessness. It was all there in Tessa’s novel. But his sister had taken each thread and spun it into prurient melodrama, liberally seasoning it with wife beatings, affairs and incest. The character that was so obviously Mr Zeal was the protagonist’s bisexual younger brother. There was even a pet monkey called Bianca. ‘Where did you get all that stuff from?’ he’d asked Tessa. ‘I pinched a handful of diaries. And don’t look so po-faced. The rest ended up on a bonfire didn’t they?’ That wasn’t the point but Lewis had let it go. At least Mrs Channing hadn’t been alive to read it. All he could do now was cross his fingers and hope that this new one was fiction – better fiction than the last – and that Tessa hadn’t found another life to plunder.

  ‘That’s good news. Am I allowed to ask what it’s about?’

  She clamped her lips together and shook her head.

  Lewis dropped Tessa off at Salisbury Road and went home. Andrea was in the breakfast room, helping Sarah with a jigsaw puzzle. His wife looked tired, her face grey and her eyelids puffy.

  ‘Look, Daddy.’ His daughter pointed proudly at the puzzle. ‘It’s Humpty Dumpty. And it’s got twenty pieces. Mummy only helped a bit.’

  ‘Very good,’ he said, stroking her hair, feeling the fragile skull beneath the fine, blonde curls.

  Throughout Andrea’s first pregnancy, he had been convinced that their child would look like Tessa or him. It seemed unthinkable that his family’s dark hair and eyes would not triumph over Andrea’s auburn hair and freckled skin. Four years ago, when the nurse came smiling into the waiting room, inviting him to meet his new daughter, he had followed her, fully expecting to see a shock-haired, noisy, squirming bundle. Sarah lay awake but tranquil in her mother’s arms. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? Our daughter,’ Andrea whispered, offering him the baby, and Lewis had found it incomprehensible that the bald scrap of life, swaddled in the white sheet, had anything to do with him.

  He fed, changed and winded Sarah. He wheeled the pram around the neighbourhood and patted her back through colicky evenings. As she developed into a toddler, he pushed the swing, suffered Walt Disney films, sang nursery rhymes and read bedtime stories. People said that he was a ‘natural’. This was all pretty weird considering that, from that first sighting, Lewis had been encased in an insulating membrane that somehow made it impossible for him to connect with her. It wasn’t a comfortable sensation. He’d gone as far as making an appointment with the doctor to discuss it, but he’d cancelled at the last minute, scared of what he might learn about himself.

  ‘How are you, love?’ he asked his wife. ‘Did you manage to put your feet up?’

  ‘I’m okay. Feeling a bit like Nellie the elephant.’ She patted the bump concealed beneath the folds of her roomy dress and turned to Sarah, who was clasping the final two pieces of the puzzle. ‘We had a little lie down, didn’t we, darling?’ Grimacing, she puffed out her cheeks and exhaled noisily. ‘Only a few more weeks.’

  It seemed to Lewis that Andrea had been pregnant for the last five years. Sarah had been born eleven months after their marriage. It was a straightf
orward pregnancy and delivery but the two that followed had resulted in miscarriages at three and four months. The doctors assured them that there was no reason to think that the current pregnancy would not be successful, all the same it had been an anxious time, a time of restraint and caution, and this unborn child had already dominated their lives to such an extent that Lewis sometimes wished that they had called it a day after Sarah.

  ‘Tessa seems well.’ If he didn’t mention her soon the omission would lurk between them, coiled like a rattlesnake, waiting to rear up and strike. ‘I thought we might pop down, later.’

  ‘We won’t be able to stay for long. I don’t want Sarah going to bed late.’

  He might have argued that it was Saturday and that a late night, once in a while, would do no harm, but instead he stalled. ‘I’ll ring them in a minute. See what their plans are. Fancy a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit?’

  Lewis stood in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. It was no longer the inhospitable scullery that it had been in Mrs Channing’s day, but a home-y place, with plenty of useful cupboards and wipe-clean work tops. His daughter’s gaudy paintings covered the cork pin-up board and houseplants decorated the windowsill. The three of them ate their meals here and, on warm days, they left the back door open so that Sarah could potter in and out of the garden.

  It had taken several years to renovate the house and sort out the garden. His father had offered to help but, when the sugar soap and sandpaper were broken out, it became clear that Dick Swinburne saw himself purely in an advisory roll. Once he realised how long it was going to take, Lewis borrowed a lump sum from the bank and employed a firm of painters and decorators. That part of it had been straightforward. The contents of the house, including Mrs Channing’s boxes, all of which under the terms of the will became his, presented him with a more difficult problem. Once the solicitors had extracted the essential documents from the mounds of private letters and papers, Lewis had incinerated the rest. He was doubtlessly destroying things of great interest but he felt it was the proper thing to do. He hung on to a few of the knick-knacks that had fascinated him as a child – the miniature replica of the Taj Mahal, the puzzle-box with the secret compartment, the elephants, of course – offering the furniture and everything else that remained, to the second cousin, relieved when a pantechnicon arrived and hauled the lot off to Ipswich.