by Susan Moody
‘I’ve seen his programmes on the telly, actually. Extremely good.’
‘He’s attached to Cambridge University and he also has a professorship at Yale.’
‘It was obvious even back then that he’d do well, whatever field he went into.’ The cigarette pack taps against the table top. ‘I hope you won’t mind me saying that I thought you children were absolute menaces,’ he continues. ‘But your nuisance value was quite offset by the fact that you were all so . . . so interesting. It’s a funny thing to say about kids, really.’
‘Were you happy back then?’ I ask.
He frowns, considering the question. ‘Not exactly unhappy,’ he says eventually, ‘But certainly not happy the way I am today. For one thing, I fit into my own skin now, and back then, I didn’t. And then we were all so desperately poor, with the war so recently ended. Not just individuals, but the nation, trying to put our former enemies back on their feet before getting back on our own. But things are so much better now, aren’t they? Especially now that we’ve passed through the Sixties, been set free, as it were.’
I wonder if there is a message encoded in his words. ‘What I wanted to ask you, Gordon, is whether you have any idea what happened to Sasha Elias.’
‘Who was that?’
‘That sad German refugee who lodged with Mrs Sheffield.’
‘Oh, him. Yes, of course, silly me, I knew him very well. As a matter of fact, the Music Society had several musical soirées in his flat – your mother came to one of them and played the viola. And I remember Orlando coming along one evening, singing a couple of folk songs with Vi Sheffield. She has such a fine alto voice, and he improvised a descant so beautifully that it literally brought tears to the eyes. You could see how he got a scholarship to the choir school.’
I try not to look disbelieving. I didn’t know Orlando had done that. Nor Fiona. What else had I missed? Had I only seen the woods, and never any of the individual trees?
‘Yes,’ Gordon chatters on. ‘Elias was an eccentric kind of person, I thought. One evening he played the Goldberg Variations, wearing a red brocade jacket instead of the usual tails.’
‘Sounds rather fun.’
‘Not only that . . . after a bit, he took off the jacket to give us the benefit of his braces! Rainbow-coloured, if you can believe it, and about three inches wide. Well! . . . it wasn’t quite what we were used to in Shale, I can tell you. But he did play very beautifully . . .’
‘So he stayed on down here, did he?’
‘Not for all that long, as I remember. Maybe a couple of years. Actually . . .’ He leaned forward. ‘. . . there were quite a lot of people here who thought he might have had something to do with that murder. You know, that Nicola girl. Malicious little thing, I thought she was. Always making unpleasant remarks. Personally, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had killed her.’
‘So they were obviously able to prove that he had nothing to do with it.’
‘There was never any actual proof, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Gordon, that’s just spiteful gossip. There was absolutely nothing to tie Sasha in with her.’
‘He taught her piano, didn’t he? And, rumour hath it, a little more besides.’
‘That’s rubbish. Just something Nicola said to cause trouble. In any case, he was at my house that night. You might just as well say you were under suspicion.’
‘Moi? Highly unlikely, my dear.’
‘Anyway, I don’t believe he had anything to do with it.’ My voice is brisk and positive, though I have no evidence to back up my conviction. My head is full of heat; I feel vaguely nauseous.
‘I don’t mind saying I always had my suspicions about Ava Carlton’s husband. You were probably too young to remember him, but he hung around for quite a long time, that summer, and after. A rough sort of bloke, if ever I saw one. And I saw him talking to Nicola on more than one occasion. In fact, I told the police as much, when they interviewed me. There was another guy, too, always sitting on a bench along the front. I mentioned him to Fiona, as a matter of fact, and I think she Had a Word with him.’ He laughs affectionately. ‘Your mother’s Words were usually pretty effective.’
It seemed fairly clear that whatever Gordon’s reasons for staying here so long, they had nothing to do with Nicola’s death, since he seemed completely unaffected by it. But why should he be? If Nicola had been acting true to form, she probably made his life hell. In any case, there was no reason for him to move on, apart from the fact that he originally came from somewhere else. ‘So, you don’t know what happened to Mr Elias?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Is he telling me the truth? ‘You sound as though you were friends, through your choral group and musical evenings. Wouldn’t he have said something to you about where he was going, or what he was going to do?’
‘Well, it would probably have had something to do with music. I seem to remember vaguely that he took another job in a school somewhere in London, but once he’d left, I never heard a dicky-bird. Now, Prunella Vane – such an unfortunate name – always so edgy and brittle, wasn’t she? Always so determined that nobody was going to put anything over on her – I know precisely what happened to her, because believe it or not, we still keep in touch.’
‘So where did she go?’
‘She threw up teaching, and took jobs all over the place, as what they used to call a cook-general, until she’d saved up enough money, then she went out to France, bought somewhere near Avignon or somewhere, and set up a cooking school. Very successful I believe, though you’d imagine there was a touch of the coals-to-Newcastle about it, wouldn’t you, an Englishwoman teaching cookery in France?’
‘I suppose so. Who else is still here from the old days?’
‘A lot more than you’d think.’ He made a face. ‘Including that bastard of an art teacher . . . Bertram Yelland.’
‘What?’ Here was another piece of information linking me to those long-ago days, that summer of continuous heat. ‘He lives down here?’
‘Not permanently, thank God, or I might just have to slit my wrists! What a bully he was, swaggering about the place, talking in that well-bred over-loud voice of his. I remember him chasing after young Orlando once with a mop! Picked it straight out of the bucket where Ava had left it, dripped a trail of cold grey bubbles all over the house.’ Gordon shudders. ‘Ghastly man. I told him off once when you, poor little thing that you were, burst into tears when he rushed at you with a knotted wet towel.’
‘What happened?’ Do I remember this occasion? I’m not sure.
‘My dear! He actually turned on me, flicking that wet towel at me, and, I may say, raising several nasty welts on my arm before I could reach the safety of my own room and slam the door in his ugly mug.’
I’m touched by this portrait of Gordon as knight errant. ‘Thank you, that’s sweet of you.’
‘It wasn’t the first time, either. Remember that lapsed nun, nice looking woman?’
‘Attila the Nun?’
‘Personally, I called her Angela, that being her name,’ he says drily. ‘Yelland was always pestering the poor girl. I had a few words with him about it, which he didn’t like at all, but in the end she had to leave, couldn’t take him hanging about trying to get her into bed.’
‘I didn’t know anything about that.’ I wonder if Orlando did.
‘Frankly, I don’t know why your mother didn’t have one of her famous Words with him.’
‘Orlando tells me Mr Yelland’s become quite a well-known painter.’
‘More’s the pity. When he announced that he was going to fulfil his dreams and become an artist, I did so hope he’d prove to be a total failure. But no such luck. He paints portraits, mostly. Always seems to have something in the Royal Academy summer show. He had an exhibition last year in one of the Bond Street galleries and I read the reviews, the usual claptrap that art critics like to indulge in. I’m extremely glad to say that they all seemed to be of the opinion that this show wa
sn’t a patch on his last one, and that basically Yelland was past his prime.’
He grimaces and I see long-ago insults burn and hum across his face. ‘Serve the son-of-a-bitch bloody well right, I say. You wouldn’t believe how many times I wanted to smash my fist into that smug jeering face of his, push those large teeth down his foul-mouthed throat. I’ll tell you what, Alice, I’d do it now, all right. Wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But back then . . . well, I was hardly a prepossessing specimen, was I? If it had come to fisticuffs, I was well aware who’d have come off worst.’
‘He was a pretty nasty bit of work, wasn’t he?’ I wonder at the suppressed rage still seething beneath Gordon’s bland surface. I’d seen him as mild-mannered and inoffensive, but perhaps he had always been this angry.
‘The interesting thing – or the unfortunate thing, depending on your point of view – is that he recently bought one of the cottages down at the North End. Since you left, they’ve all been gentrified like mad. Very picturesque. It’s a regular artists’ colony down there now.’
‘But he always seemed so keen to get away from here. I wonder why he chose to come back.’
‘He only comes for the occasional weekend, but in summer you often see him swanning down the High Street, looking like Oscar Wilde on a bad day, condescending left, right and centre. Thank God it doesn’t occur to him to visit the public library or God knows what trouble he’d get up to.’
With difficulty, I try to imagine Bertram Yelland as the Prince of Chaos, barging into the quiet purlieus of the library and causing mayhem, flinging books about, perhaps, or overturning the stacks, sabotaging the filing system, hectoring the librarians.
Gordon rubs warily at his eyes. ‘Do you remember those hideous spectacles we had to wear just after the war? National Health they called them; national hindrance would be more like it.’
‘They were pretty ugly.’
‘If I’d had the money back then, I’d gladly have spent it on a decent pair of glasses, even if it meant wearing the same collar two days running or not having my shoes repaired. “Trouble with you, my boy,” my mother used to say – before she died, this is – “you’ve got ideas above your station.”’
‘Was she right?’
He smiles at me. ‘I didn’t have much choice, really, my station at the time being so low that any idea at all would have been above it. Anyway, all that’s changed. Thank God for contact lenses, I say, even though they sometimes make my eyes look a bit red.’ He glances at his watch.
I can take a hint. ‘Gordon, it’s been wonderful to catch up with you again. I hope we can meet up soon. You must come round for a drink, once I’m settled.’
‘I’d love that.’ His voice glows. ‘Give me your phone number, and if I find anything more about your friend Elias, I’ll let you know.’ Getting to his feet, he adds kindly, ‘This is a nice place to live, Alice, even if it’s not a vast metropolis. There’s quite a bit going on, in an amateur sort of way: book groups, the Drama Society, Ramblers Association, plenty of musical events of one kind and another. Talking of which . . .’ He delves into the breast-pocket of his jacket. ‘. . . there’s a nice concert coming up soon: piano, solo soprano – Helena Wilburton, if you’ve heard of her – and the Choral Group is singing some madrigals.’
‘Thanks, Gordon.’ I’m really touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘I’ll definitely be there.’
‘Good. Meanwhile, I’m sure you’ll be very happy here, and I sincerely hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.’
‘So do I.’ Our eyes meet. I wonder how he can be so sure that I am needy. Perhaps he is aware that what I want most is to achieve the same peace of mind that he clearly has. Apart from his feelings about Bertram Yelland.
Twenty years ago, there was obviously far more friction swirling around our house than I had been aware of. In fact, given what I had learned from Vi Sheffield, there was obviously far more of almost everything going on than I had realized.
SIX
‘Where are you, Orlando?’
‘In Boston.’
‘When are you coming back here?’
‘Why? Is something wrong?’
‘Not really.’ I am rolling the pearl recovered from the marble crevices of my mantel between my thumb and first finger. ‘Orlando, you didn’t tell me you used to go to Gordon Parker’s evenings.’
‘Didn’t I?’
‘And you didn’t tell me you did stuff with Mrs Sheffield, either.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Orlando. You know perfectly well I’m talking singing duets with her, helping her clear out her house, all sorts of . . .’ I’m not quite sure why I feel so indignant.
‘I’m sure I did tell you.’
‘You didn’t. Whereas I told you everything.’
‘Everything? Alice, are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ I think about it. ‘Everything I did, even if not everything I thought. I never went anywhere without you, you always knew what I was doing.’ Yet, sliding back to that last summer, I can see that I am not entirely truthful. My loyalties lay for a while with Nicola rather than with him; I took her side, not his. And she has come between us again. I have kept things from him, just as he obviously keeps them from me. Which does not prevent me from feeling betrayed.
There is a pause and I can hear the thin line of a flute playing behind him, laughter, someone running arpeggios up and down a keyboard. I feel excluded. Lost. Pressing my nose to the window of someone else’s life, without the slightest hope of ever being invited in.
‘When you bought me that painting, after I moved in here, did you know that Bertram Yelland has a house in the North End?’
‘As a matter of fact, I did.’
‘Orlando, you seem to have kept an awful lot of things to yourself. What else should you be telling me now instead of letting me finding it out by accident?’
‘Why should you be told anything?’
Suddenly, I feel exhausted. ‘Stop quibbling, and tell me when you’re coming home.’
‘When would you like me to come home?’
‘Right now, since you ask,’ I say, aware of how childish I sound.
‘Complicated to organize,’ he says.
‘When then?’
‘As soon as it’s feasible. I’ll let you know. But I’ll definitely be back in England in time for your birthday – even if the President himself asks the Musick Consort to perform at the White House – about which, I may say, there have been rumours.’
‘Wow!’
‘I know. Depending on your political views, it could either mean a huge boost for chamber music in the US, or the kiss of death!’
Listening to the cadences of his voice, picturing his familiar face, the way he holds the phone to his ear, the silvery silkiness of his hair, I am suddenly overwhelmed. ‘Orlando . . .’ Tears fill my eyes and I start to sob.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I feel so lonely.’
‘Oh, Alice, sweet Alice. It breaks my heart to hear you cry.’
‘I keep seeing her,’ I say.
‘No doubt we both will until the end of our days. But you must think of other things. Go for a walk. See friends. Take on more work. It’ll pass. It always does.’
‘I miss you,’ I say. ‘I wish you were here.’
‘Believe me, so do I.’
I replace the receiver. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t so hastily cut myself off from the metropolis. In London, I had friends and interests; despite my brave words to Erin, down here there is very little of either. At least I have my work. And I can always go for a walk. Which I do very shortly, three miles along the seafront to the grassy headland. And as I walk, I wonder just how many other things Orlando knows and hasn’t told me.
On my way back, I climb the steep little path between overarching trees and step out on to rough grass. It’s all exactly as I remember it, even the Secret Glade, though when I get nearer, I can see that it is overgrown now, the patch
of grass in the middle vanished beneath further long curls of brambles to make a single large clump. Unreachable now unless the picker is prepared for considerable damage to tender flesh, the berries tantalize, plumply ripe, lustrously black. The police must have searched the place for clues at the time, but I can’t help wondering what lies buried under that thicket of thorns: did they ever find whatever was used to smash her head in, for instance? If not, do they have any idea what instrument had been used to inflict such damage? If I’m determined to find out, my best line of information is probably Gordon Parker.
Another night of shimmering heat. Restless, I stand at the open window staring out to sea. There are lights in the town and I know I can always go and have a drink in a pub or eat at the Chinese restaurant that has braved the frontiers of provincial England and set up in the High Street. Or visit the town’s only cinema. Or simply idle along the front while the sea gnaws and nibbles at the shingle.
I do none of these things. Instead I sit down and pull another of Sasha Elias’s sheets of paper into the light of the lamp. I wonder what I am looking for. If I could find him, unasked questions might be answered, including the one that still bothers me: why he did not get in touch with me again in Paris?
My telephone rings with an urgent commission from Brussels: a hefty number of pages on some complication to do with the coal and steel industries, three days to complete, they will send a courier, they will pay a great deal of money if I think I can get the job done in time, they particularly asked for me since I have the reputation not only of doing a good job but also of getting work in on time. I tell them I can do it, and stay up most of the night to get a head start.
For once, sleep comes easily. I am up again by ten, and seated at my desk. I wear cut-offs and a sleeveless white blouse that ties at the waist. Orlando is right. Work chases away the demons, puts the world into perspective. Under my bare feet, the pile of the rug is smooth, almost sensuous.
At two o’clock, I take a break, eat a salad of cos lettuce and tiny brown local shrimps from the fishmonger, with a slice of wholemeal brown bread and a knob of Caerphilly. I missed cheese in the States. With a cup of coffee to hand, I settle down again to my work. By seven o’clock, from the all-seeing eye of my window I watch the shadows beginning to slant across the green, adding a certain gravitas to the day, a reminder of men coming home from work, sailors returning from the sea, of suppers to be prepared, children to round up. The sea is clustered with white sails as the members of the sailing club come in to shore.
