Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  Hulbert bared his dentures in the parody of a smile. ‘Point taken, Miss.’

  ‘Are you going to come back to the house, Mr Hulbert? Join us for a cup of tea and a ham sandwich? Catch up on … things?’

  Lewis recognised the sarcasm in his sister’s voice but there was nothing he could do to stop her and she continued, ‘It would be a chance to interrogate the witnesses again. Take a few more statements. Cast a few more aspersions.’

  Hulbert raised his eyebrows, ‘No need, Miss. Someone…’ he stared at Tessa, ‘has already cast plenty of aspersions.’

  Lewis laid a hand on his sister’s arm, determined to avoid the nastiness which threatened to develop. ‘Sorry, Mr Hulbert. We’re all a bit strung up.’

  ‘No need to apologise, sir,’ he spoke slowly and with a suggestion of condescension, ‘it’s perfectly understandable.’

  As the cars pulled away Lewis turned to watch Hulbert standing impassively outside the church.

  Even the lacklustre vicar could do nothing to diminish the enormity of the graveside ritual. Tessa had seen dozens of coffins lowered into dozens of graves in dozens of films. Ashes to ashes. She’d heard those words quoted, sung and misappropriated, but she had never really, really seen or heard. Coming home and witnessing the effects of her mother’s death, watching her father’s brave agony and her brother’s bewilderment, had been draining enough but, by the time they laid Peggy Swinburne to rest beneath the sticky red clay, Tessa felt battered. Her mother’s body – the blue-grey eyes, the cheek with the black mole, her restless fingers, her heart – was about to be dumped in a hole in the ground. Left to rot. It was appalling.

  Every now and again her father drew in a deep breath and pulled his shoulders back, shutting his eyes then opening them wide as if, this time, he would wake up. The grass was sodden, the ground uneven, and he almost lost his footing. Pain flicked across his face as he took his full weight on his bad leg and Tessa edged closer to him, slipping her arm through his, finding unforeseen consolation in his fleeting smile.

  When it was done, eagerness to escape the desolation of the cemetery overrode any reluctance to desert her mother. The three of them, along with Frank Swinburne, travelled back to the house together, the luxurious upholstery of the car’s interior encasing them in its mournful cocoon, isolating them from the outside world.

  They sat in the breakfast room at Cranwell Lodge, firelight sending shadows scurrying across the walls.

  ‘I see you’ve changed the furniture,’ Tess said.

  ‘Yes. Andrea’s taken a lot of stuff and I’ve been picking up a few odds and ends at house sales.’ He patted the arm of the battered leather sofa and nodded to an antique dresser where another dresser had once stood.

  They sat gazing into the fire, the only sounds the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the crack of burning logs.

  Tessa was the first to speak. ‘That was pretty grisly.’

  ‘Did you think it wouldn’t be?’ Her brother’s question held no criticism, merely curiosity.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it much. The actual burial, I mean. Then, when they lowered the coffin into the grave I felt this huge surge of … not love … pity, sympathy, empathy for Dad.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know about “good”. It’s bloody confusing. I’ve made it my lifelong duty to dislike him, so I don’t know where that leaves me.’

  ‘There are lots of people you can transfer your dislike to. Cliff Richard. Edward Heath. The man who lives over the road. All worthy of your loathing.’

  ‘I’ll go for Noel Edmonds, if that’s okay with you.’

  The logs cracked and settled, sending sparks spiralling up the chimney.

  ‘I think I’ll call in at Uncle Frank’s on my way to the station. See Dad. I’ll probably feel different about him in the cold light of day.’

  ‘You’re going back tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was nothing, no meetings or signings or work in progress, summoning her back to London but escaping from this place had become a habit. Besides she needed to examine the shift in her feelings towards her father – best done at a distance.

  Whilst her brother was in the kitchen, preparing mugs of drinking chocolate, Tessa wondered what his life must be like, alone in this house. He probably spent most of his weekends with Kirsty Ross, and more time at school than was necessary. Even so, that left a significant number of solitary hours. And now there would be another man – her father – rattling around in another ghost-filled house, washing his own socks and plumping undisturbed cushions.

  Lewis returned with a tray.

  ‘Andrea looked well,’ Tessa said, hoping Lewis would reveal how the land lay between him and his wife.

  ‘Yes.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s not your style to be oblique.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re right. I must be going through one of my rare diplomatic phases. So. D’you want to tell me what’s going on? I’m beginning to suspect that my brother is a bit of a one for the ladies. Lotte sends love and condolences, by the way.’ She hadn’t, but a reminder of his indiscretion might loosen his tongue.

  ‘Andrea wants a divorce,’ he said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Suppose so? Surely you want to marry Kirsty.’

  ‘We haven’t got that far yet.’

  She snorted. ‘Heaven forbid you should rush in to anything. After all, you’ve only known the woman for … what …?’

  ‘Sixteen years.’

  They sipped drinking chocolate, its sweetness and the firelight softening the edges of that harsh day.

  ‘How did you – why did you – decide to accept this house? Didn’t you love her?’ Tessa asked.

  Lewis stared into the flames and she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the sofa. ‘I did. Do. But nothing seemed clear-cut at the time.’

  ‘You were very young.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually I tossed a coin.’

  Tessa laughed. ‘What?’

  ‘If you remember, I had one month to make my decision. To be fair, Dad didn’t say much apart from the killer: “Your mother would love it if you lived nearby.” But I couldn’t ignore them. Mum had just come through a really bad patch. Dad was having trouble with his hip. He couldn’t mow the lawn or doing anything off a ladder—’

  ‘There are such things as gardeners and odd-job men,’ she whispered. ‘And what did Kirsty have to say?’

  ‘Nothing. Only that the choice had to be completely mine or I would spend the rest of my life blaming her.’

  ‘What? Instead of blaming yourself? But if she loved you …’

  ‘Kirsty’s love involves opening the cage not closing it.’

  ‘Piffle,’ Tessa snorted. ‘Love is about doing everything in your power – playing dirty if you have to – to hang on to the one you love.’

  He reached out with his foot and gently kicked hers. ‘That’s the Tessa Swinburne version of love.’

  ‘Mmmm. So what about this coin tossing malarkey? You are having me on?’

  ‘Not at all. You see, each and every time you toss a coin, there’s an equal chance of it coming down heads or tails. Theoretically I could toss a coin a hundred, a thousand, a million times and it could be heads every throw.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘No. It’s the theory of probability. So I said to myself, I’ll toss this half-crown – we were pre-decimalisation then – ten times, once for each year that I have to live in Cranwell Lodge. Ten heads on the trot and I’ll choose the house.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Ten heads. Eleven actually.’ He took a hanky from his trouser pocket and blew his nose. ‘I’ve tried the same thing dozens of times since and the most I’ve got is seven.’

  Tessa contemplated her brother’s revelation, still uncertain if he was making the
whole thing up. ‘Well I’m delighted to hear that your life’s been decided by sound mathematical theory. I’d hate to think you’d sold your soul to the Devil or anything as unscientific as that.’

  Lewis rested his hands on his knees and leaned forward. ‘Yes. Mathematics, and the assumption – incorrect as it turned out – that Kirsty would chuck up the Newcastle job and come back here. I was pretty pissed off with her for a while.’

  ‘You would be. And that’s when Andrea came along.’

  ‘Yep. You’ve got it.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  She leaned against him. ‘It’ll be a doddle from here on, Lewis. You’ve done your ten years’ penance. Divorce Andrea, sell the house and disappear into the sunset. Or Bristol if that’s where happiness lies. Dad’ll manage. And no more lame ducks – literally or metaphorically.’

  Lewis crouched to put a shovelful of coal on the fire then placed a couple of logs on top of the smouldering pile. It was getting on for midnight but neither of them made a move to go to bed. Tessa slid off the sofa to sit, knees drawn up, on the hearth rug, her face prickling with the heat, her back cold from the draught.

  ‘Got anything to drink?’

  ‘No.’ He answered too quickly.

  She sighed. ‘You’ve got to stop trying to save me from myself.’

  Pushing herself up, she went to the dresser, opening the doors to the lower cupboards. The bottles stashed inside caught the dancing firelight. While he was out of the room, looking for clean glasses, she opened the right-hand dresser drawer. It was too dark to see what it held and she ran her hand over its contents, disappointed to find metallic objects, cold to the touch. Screwdriver, pliers, hammer.

  They sipped whisky and grew sleepy, talking about their mother, dredging up and assembling memories of her, realising what disparate mothers theirs had been. Lewis’s, gentle and sensitive, thoughtful and accepting; Tessa’s, vague and exasperating, timid and dull.

  ‘I wonder how Dad would describe his Peggy Swinburne.’ Lewis spoke softly, staring into the fire.

  And then, at the very close of that day, they got around to Gordon.

  ‘I had some stupid idea he might show up. Come wandering out of the past. There was a bloke sitting at the back. Gingery hair—’

  ‘That was Dave Brown, my neighbour,’ Lewis interjected.

  She closed her eyes, seeing a tiny lock of non-coloured hair at the nape of a silky-soft neck. The smell of baby – talcum powder and vomit – snagged her memory. ‘D’you still think he’s alive?’

  ‘If he is, I don’t want to know. It would be unbearable to think that Mum had missed him.’

  Tessa woke sometime in the night. She was lying on a sofa, an eiderdown tucked around her. The fire was still alight, dull embers glowing red amongst the spent coals, a wire guard in front of it to prevent stray sparks. Her head felt fuzzy, and it took several seconds to think where she was, and why.

  Chapter 27

  She remembered hearing Lewis whisper, ‘I’m off now,’ then burrowing back under the eiderdown. Next time she roused, the quilt had slipped and her feet were icy. She dressed quickly, her clothes damp on her skin. Grabbing a coat from the back of the kitchen door, she pulled it around her, shivering while she waited for the kettle to boil. It was shocking, considering that it had been the day of her mother’s funeral, but she’d slept more soundly than she had for months.

  The house smelled sulphurous from last night’s coal fire. She had never been alone here and, although surrounded by evidence of Lewis – slippers, discarded newspapers, his annotations on the calendar – she felt edgy without him, half expecting Mrs Channing’s ghost to spring out of a wardrobe. Strong coffee helped overcome her uneasiness and, clutching her mug, she tiptoed from room to room, spying on her brother’s life.

  Lewis had it in him to be a monk or, at best, a lighthouse keeper and, true to form, he had chosen to sleep in the smallest bedroom. But when Kirsty stayed did they cling to each other in this spartan cell, making neat, mathematical love? One and one make two. There wasn’t enough space for anything more expansive.

  She crossed the landing to the bedroom that he’d once shared with Andrea. This was now a workroom – a large table near the window, littered with tools and bits of balsa wood, tubes of glue and an anglepoise lamp.

  It wasn’t all that hard to understand why Andrea had gone, but it was a mystery why level-headed Miss Ross had come back to take another shot at it.

  The taxi dropped Tessa at Frank Swinburne’s address. Flat-roofed, surrounded by municipal-style planting, the three-storey block was a place where people without much money or imagination would live. She located the stairway leading to Flat Fifteen, on the top floor. Before ringing the bell, she dragged her fingers through her hair and made sure her coat was neatly buttoned.

  Her uncle came to the door. Frank Swinburne was two years his brother’s senior but looked younger. Whilst her father’s hair had thinned at the crown and was entirely grey, Frank’s hair was suspiciously brown, springing vigorously from a precise side parting. He always looked smart and full of vim, as if he were permanently on his way to a party. He wore snazzy shirts with sharp creases down the sleeves; his shoes shone and he smelled of tangy aftershave. There was something of the bright-eyed fox about him.

  Although he’d always lived in the town, he’d had numerous different addresses. As a child, visiting him in this place and that, she’d reasoned that his job as a travelling something-or-another required that his home, too, be peripatetic. By the time she was old enough to ask, his appeal had evaporated and there were more interesting things to occupy her.

  After Cranwell Lodge, the flat felt cramped and the ceilings oppressively low. The uncoordinated furnishings contrasted starkly with the dapper man. Two chintz-covered armchairs; a splay-legged coffee table, its stained surface evidence of careless use; a contemporary sofa, upholstered in mid-blue Dralon, a tartan blanket draped across its back; a metal standard lamp with a fringed shade; prints of anonymous landscapes haphazardly ranged across cream walls. It was as startling as undressing a smartly-dressed woman only to reveal grubby, mismatching underwear.

  Her father was sitting on the sofa, staring at the swirling pattern on the carpet, his hands clasping his knees, arms braced. He jumped up when he saw her. They hugged – a proper hug this time.

  ‘Did you sleep, Dad? You must have been exhausted.’

  ‘I did, believe it or not. I think Frank must have slipped something in my tea.’

  Frank hovered like an overprotective nurse. ‘Have you had breakfast, Tess? Most important meal of the day. How does it go? Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper.’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she lied. ‘I’m on my way to the station and I just popped in to see Dad.’ She willed her uncle to leave them alone together but he stood his ground, wittering on, until she was forced to say, ‘I wouldn’t mind a coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  Once he was gone, she asked her father gently, ‘Anything you want me to do Dad? Any sorting? I can catch a later train.’

  He patted the back of her hand, ‘Thanks, love, but it’s a bit soon to think about that. Best to let things settle.’

  Love. How long, if ever, since he’d called her that?

  ‘Well, I can come back any time and give you a hand.’

  He nodded and shut his eyes, his mouth clamped in an awkward grimace as he held back his tears. She wanted to talk about her mother; to find out if at least the last day of her life had been a happy one. But Frank was back in a flash with a tray of coffee and biscuits, putting an end to their intimacy.

  Before leaving, she went to the bathroom. Like the rest of the place it was serviceable but not much more. The towels were threadbare, the bath, clean but basic, the mirror above the washbasin, spattered with toothpaste. Her uncle was clearly not out to impress visitors. Way back when they were kids, he used to bring women, whom she’d assumed were his girlfriends, to family get-togethers – b
ut he never brought the same woman twice. After Gordon, there had been no more family parties and, although he called regularly at the house, he was always alone. It was odd that such a trim, gregarious man should end up on his own, living in rented accommodation.

  The phone rang and, through the flimsy wall, she could hear her uncle’s voice rumbling on. The laundry basket – pale blue rattan, flicked with gold paint, just like the one Gran used to have – caught her eye. She lifted the lid. Shirt. Fawn socks. Aertex vest. And pushed down the side, a magazine. She pulled it out, amused that a man of sixty-odd, living alone, felt compelled to hide his smutty magazines from his brother.

  It took a second or two to register that the picture on the cover was that of a young man, scantily clad in a tight, white vest, a leather pouch barely concealing his genitals.

  Lewis didn’t know what to make of Tessa’s reconciliation with their father. It was Tessa all over, though – instant judgements, melodrama, everything black or white. Whatever had caused it, it was an opportunity for them – his father, Tessa and him – to start again. But, for it to stand a chance of lasting, they must be as honest with each other as he and Kirsty had been.

  Lewis had tried to explain to Kirsty why he’d thought that marriage to Andrea would work. He confessed to lack of affection for his daughters – although he still failed to understand it – and to his fling with Lotte Jamieson.

  Kirsty had listened, calm, and non-judgemental. ‘Maybe you should talk to someone about your feelings for your daughters,’ was her only comment.

  Kirsty had had two lovers. The first had left her to become a priest and the second, whom Lewis liked the sound of, had been killed in a road accident. After that she’d thrown herself resolutely into her career. No children. No flings. No lurking skeletons.

  His mother’s death had made it easier to decide what he should do and his conversation with Tessa had helped. He would, as she advised, sell the house, move to Bristol and, as soon as his divorce came through, marry Kirsty.

  But when the time came, he could not bring himself to part with Cranwell Lodge.