"It's all fake," said Jason from the corner where he and his sister were watching television. "Mum just painted it to make it look real."
I tapped my foot on the tessellated floor and listened to the hollow ring of wood. "She's a clever lady," I said, touching a hand to the rough stucco and feeling the smoothness of plaster. "Did she make the mirror as well?"
"Yup. And the candy-laber."
"What about the picture?" I asked, gazing at the Quetzalcoatl mosaic on the wall.
"That's Dad's."
"The sofa and chairs?"
"Ten quid, job lot, from a junk shop," said Beth proudly behind me. "And five quid for the patchwork throws. I begged, borrowed and stole material ... dresses ... old curtains ... tablecloths ... whatever ... from everyone I knew. The five quid went on the reels of cotton to do the sewing. What do you think?"
"Brilliant," I said honestly.
"But a bit OTT for Isleworth?"
"A bit," I agreed.
"That's what Al thinks, but all I'm doing is setting out my stall. I can create any image you want, and I can do it for peanuts. This whole room cost under three hundred quid. Okay, it doesn't count my time, but you wouldn't believe how many of my friends say they'd pay me a tenner an hour to do it in their houses."
"I bet they would," I said dryly. "They're probably paying their cleaners as much just to Hoover their floors."
She looked crestfallen. "Al doesn't want me to do it at all, says he won't even think about it unless I ask a hundred per hour minimum."
"He's right."
"Except none of my friends can pay a hundred quid per hour."
I gave her hand a quick squeeze. "It's a bad mistake to work for friends," I said. "You should photograph each room and put a portfolio together, then go out and sell yourself ... Get some fliers printed ... take out ads in the local newspaper. You're way too good to work for Ł10 an hour." I patted my rucksack. "If you like, I'll take some photographs now and send them to you. I've got my camera with me, and I'd love my husband to see what you've done. We're toying with buying the farmhouse we're renting, and you never know"�How can you be such a bitch? I asked myself�"maybe I can persuade Sam that you're the interior decorator we need."
Her face flushed pink with pleasure again. "If you're sure."
"Of course I'm sure." I squatted down beside Jason and Tansy. "Would you two like to be in the pictures?" They nodded solemnly. "Then how about we turn off the telly and you sit on Mum's sofa, one at each end? It might be better if you stood behind me," I told Beth as I sat cross-legged in front of the windows and lined up the shot. "You're blocking the mirror."
She scurried onto the patio. "I hate having my picture taken. I always look so fat."
"It depends how they're done," I said, as I snapped off half a dozen shots of the sofa-side of the room before zooming in on the Quetzlcoatl. "Why don't you sit on one of the chairs with the kids on your lap, and I'll see if I can get a view of the fireplace with the three of you to the left?"
I should have choked on my own duplicity, instead I marveled at how easy it was to cajole her into letting me make a record of everything in the room, including the bangles on her wrist and a collection of small china cats at one end of the mantelpiece. "Who's the cat lover?" I asked, as I tucked my camera back into my rucksack, when the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the minicab.
"Al. He bought them at a jumble sale years ago." She jumped the children off her lap and stood up. "You never said why you needed to see him," she reminded me, as we went back into the hall.
"I wanted to talk to him about Michael Percy," I lied, dredging up the only excuse I'd been able to come up with. "But you've already told me they lost touch"�I gave a rueful shrug�"so he wouldn't have been able to help me anyway."
"What did you want to talk about?"
"Whether Michael's as bad as he was painted in the newspapers," I said, pulling open the front door and nodding to the cab driver to say I was coming. "I'm thinking of visiting him in prison�he's just down the road from us on Portland�but I'm not sure if it's a sensible thing to do. I rather hoped Alan could give me some advice."
It sounded so weak to my ears that I expected suspicion to bristle out of her like hackles, but she seemed to find it reasonable. "Well, if it's any help, Al said it was well out of character for him to hit that woman. He reckons Michael was a lot less violent than he was when they used to hang out together. They had a fight before they fell out, and Al said Michael took a beating because he wouldn't defend himself."
"What were they fighting about?"
"That girl you mentioned�Bridget. It was when they were in their late teens. Al was so crazy about her he wanted to marry her, then he walked in one day and found her in bed with Michael. He went berserk ... broke Michael's jaw and God knows what else ... even attacked the policemen who arrived to break it up. It was mayhem, apparently. Bridget was screaming in the hall, Michael was half out the window and it took four policemen to get Al off him. He ended up in juvenile detention for it."
"Goodness!"
"He's been straight ever since," she assured me.
"I should hope so."
Beth laughed. "It all worked out for the best. He wouldn't be married to me if he'd stuck with her." A wistful note entered her voice. "But he's never broken anyone's jaw for me ... so I guess I'm not as attractive as Bridget."
I gave her an impulsive hug before heading for the cab. "Just don't test him," I warned over my shoulder. "I have a nasty feeling he'd break more than jaws if he found you in bed with someone else."
I spoke lightly, but the warning was sincere.
Letter from Dr. Joseph Ellas, psychiatrist
at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong�dated 1985
QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
Hong Kong
Dept. of Psychiatry
Mrs. M. Ranelagh
12 Greenhough Lane,
Pokfulam
June 12,1985
Dear Mrs. Ranelagh,
I am sad to hear you're leaving Hong Kong. I have enjoyed your letters and those all-too-rare occasions when you have consented to talk to me in person! You will like Sydney. I spent two years there from '72 to '74 and it was a delightful experience. Australia has the enthusiasm and vigor that comes from a mix of different cultures and I'm confident you will enjoy a polygeny where class divides are nonexistent and success depends on merit and not labels. You see, I have come to understand you.
You mentioned in your last letter that you and Sam have reached a fine understanding where the past remains buried in England. You also tell me he's an excellent father. You do not, however, say you love him. Am I supposed (like Sam?) to take that for granted? My friend the rabbi would say that nothing thrives in a desert. He would also say that whatever lies buried in England will resurface the minute you go home. But perhaps that is the plan? If so, you are a patient woman, my dear, and a little cruel, too, I think.
With best wishes for your future wherever it may be.
Yours affectionately,
J. Elias
Dr. J. Elias
*19*
Sam was sitting in the car outside Dorchester South station when I finally reached it at ten o'clock that evening. I wondered how long he'd been waiting because I hadn't phoned to say which train I was catching, and I feared it couldn't have done his temper much good if he'd been there any length of time. My intention had been to take a taxi home and face the inevitable row behind closed doors but, if his bleak expression when he got out of the car at my approach was anything to go by, he planned to have it in public.
"Jock phoned," he said tersely.
"I thought he might," I murmured, opening the back door and dumping my rucksack on the seat.
"He told me you left him at about four o'clock. What the hell have you been doing? Why the hell didn't you phone? I've been worried sick."
I showed my surprise. "I said I'd make my own way home."
"I didn't even kn
ow if you were coming home." He stalked angrily round the bonnet to open the passenger door for me, but it was so out of character that I stepped back automatically, assuming he was opening it for himself. "I'm not going to hit you," he snapped, gripping me by the arm and pressing me clumsily into my seat. "I'm not a complete bastard."
He slid in behind the steering wheel and we sat for several minutes in silence. The tension in the confined space was palpable, although I had no idea if it was due to anger over my perfidy or concern at my late return. The station was virtually empty at that time of night, but one or two people peered curiously through our windows as they passed, presumably wondering why the two dimly seen occupants were sitting so stiffly and refusing to look at each other.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked at last.
"Like what?"
"Explain?" he suggested. "I still can't believe you'd talk to Jock, and not to me. Why didn't you tell me Annie was beaten up? You know I'd have come clean if I'd realized how serious it all was."
"When?"
"What do you mean, when?"
"When would you have come clean?" I asked evenly. "I told you at the time what PC Quentin said about the bruising�but you just said we were talking bollocks. As I recall your comment was, 'Since when did a neurotic bitch and a disgruntled policeman know the first damn thing about pathology?' You could have told me the truth then and given me and Andrew Quentin a fighting chance against Drury ... but you didn't."
He dropped his head into his hands. "I thought you were wrong," he muttered. "I was pretty stressed out at the time, and you didn't make it easy for me."
"Fine. Then you've nothing to feel guilty about. You were saving me from myself. No one's going to blame you for that." I looked impatiently at my watch. "Can we go now? I'm hungry."
"You're not making this very easy for me," he said. "You must know how awful I feel."
"Actually, I don't," I said honestly. "You've never felt awful before. That year, 1978, was one of those little unpleasantnesses�like where the cutlery drawer is and how to boil eggs�that you manage to erase so successfully from your memory. I've always envied you for it, and if you're troubled now it's probably just a reaction to knowing you've been rumbled. It'll pass. It usually does."
He tried a different tack. "The boys are twitched as hell," he said. "They keep asking me what I've done that's so bad you'd want to run away."
"Oh, for Christ's sake!" I said bluntly. "If you want to make me angry, then hiding behind your children is the surest way to do it. Luke and Tom know damn well I don't run away from things. They also know I wouldn't abandon them unless I was on a life-support machine somewhere. In any case, I told them I wouldn't be home until late so I imagine they're lying in front of the telly, as per normal, wondering why their father has suddenly gone 'round the bend."
"We had a row," he admitted. "I told them they were unfeeling bastards."
I didn't bother to comment because I wasn't in the mood to massage his bruised ego. "Look," I said, tapping my watch, "I haven't had anything to eat all day and I'm starving, so can we either go home or get a takeaway? Have you and the boys eaten?"
"Tom made some spag bol for him and Luke, but I wasn't hungry."
"Good, then we'll have a curry."
"Why didn't you eat on the train?"
"Because it was trolley service," I said crossly, "and the only thing left to eat by the time it reached me was a packet of dry biscuits. So I had some wine instead ... and now I'm fighting mad and in no mood to play silly buggers with you or anyone else."
"I don't blame you," he began self-pityingly as he fired the engine. "I just wish there was something I could do or say�"
I cut him off. "Don't even think of apologizing," I said. "As far as I'm concerned you can grovel to me for the rest of your life. And it won't make a blind bit of difference. It'll make a difference to Jock, though. The sorrier you are the happier he'll be, and you'll be back in each other's pockets before you know it."
He mulled this over quietly as we turned on to the main road. "I've already apologized to Jock."
"I assumed you would."
"He calmed down pretty quickly as a matter of fact, once I'd explained what a mistake the whole damn thing had been."
"Okay."
"It didn't mean Jack shit, you know ... just something that happened while you were away. The trouble is, Libby took it more seriously than I did. She and Jock weren't getting on too well at the time and it sort of ran out of control." He paused, inviting me to say something. When I didn't he went on, "Jock understands that. He's been there himself, knows what it's like to be caught between a rock and a hard place."
"Okay."
"Does that mean you understand?"
"Of course."
He flicked me an uneasy glance as he turned left at a pelican crossing. "You don't sound as if you do."
I sighed. "I'm your wife, Sam, and I've known you since I was twenty. If I don't understand you by now then I doubt I ever will."
"I didn't mean, do you understand me. I meant, do you understand how the thing with Libby happened? What a fucking disaster it was? How sorry I was afterward?"
I gave a small laugh. "The thing? Do you mean your affair? The time you rogered your best friend's wife because your own wife was away and you hadn't had sex for twenty-four hours?"
"It wasn't like that," he protested.
"Of course it wasn't," I agreed. "It was Libby's fault. She caught you at a low ebb, plied you with drink, then persuaded you into a quickie on the kitchen floor. Afterward, you found yourself in an impossible position. You regretted it intensely and hoped it was a one-off. She loved every minute of it and looked on it as the beginning of a great love affair." I watched him for a moment. "I should imagine Libby's version is a little different�you seduced her in other words�but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle."
"I knew you'd be angry," he said unhappily. "That's why I never told you."
"Now you're flattering yourself," I said. "It's probably a huge disappointment but the only emotion I have ever experienced re you and Libby is indifference." Of course I was lying ... but he owed me ... I had honored my promises ... and he hadn't. "If I'd been able to work up the energy to feel angry, I think you'd have realized something was wrong. Certainly Libby would, but then she's a woman and women are better at picking up vibes."
He pulled up in front of the Indian restaurant. "Wasn't it her who told you about us?"
"No. I suspect she's even more embarrassed than you are. We're hardly talking Abelard and Heloise in all conscience."
He clamped down on his anger. "Who then?"
"You." I smiled at his expression. "One night in Hong Kong. Not in so many words ... You weren't that drunk ... but you said enough for me to put two and two together. It was quite a relief, actually. I remember thinking, So that's what this has all been about�a grubby little affair with Libby Williams. I even laughed about it afterward. I kept picturing you and her working up a sweat in Jock's bed while he was out getting blow jobs off the Graham Road tart. There was such a sweet irony about it�you being piggy in the middle of a couple of predators. It explained everything. Your unpleasantness ... your lies ... your dash to leave England. I even felt sorry for you in a funny kind of way because it seemed so obvious you'd sold your soul to the devil for something you hadn't enjoyed very much."
He shook his head in bewilderment. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I couldn't see the point. We were on the other side of the world. All I'd have been doing was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted."
Sam wasn't designed to remain humble for long. "Do you know what this feels like? It feels like I'm married to a stranger. I don't even know who you are anymore." He propped his elbows on the steering wheel and ground his knuckles into his eyes. "You always tell people what a great marriage we have ... what great kids we have ... what a great father I am. But it's all just crap ... one huge pretense at
happy families when the truth is you hate my guts. How could you do that? How could you be so bloody devious?"
I reached for the door handle. "The same way you did," I said lightly. "Closed my eyes to what a bastard you'd been and pretended none of it had ever happened."
He agonized over my indifference while we waited for the curry, almost as if I'd thrown doubt on his manhood by refusing to take his infidelity seriously. For myself, I was wondering when he was going to realize that the bone of contention was Annie, not Libby, and how he would explain that when he did. We took seats in a corner and he muttered away in an undertone, afraid of being overheard, although my refusal to lighten his burden with sympathetic comments meant his tone became increasingly�and to my ears sweetly�strident.
He didn't want me to get the wrong impression ... It wasn't true that he'd tried to pretend nothing had happened ... more that he'd been terrified of losing me ... Of course he'd have admitted to it if I'd asked but it seemed more sensible to let sleeping dogs lie ... He knew I probably wouldn't believe him, but he was drunk the night Libby seduced him and the whole thing did turn into a total nightmare ... It was absolutely correct to describe Libby as a predator ... She was one of those women who thought the grass was always greener on the other side ... He remembered how shocked he'd been when he realized how jealous she was of me and how determined she was to bring me down to her size...
"When I told her I wanted to end it, she said she was going to tell you what a rat you'd married," he said grimly. "I know it's not much of an excuse but I honestly think I'd have killed her if she'd actually done it. I loathed her so much by then I couldn't be in the same room with her without wanting to strangle her."
I believed him, not just because I wanted to but because he'd never been able to mention Libby's name without prefacing it with "that bitch Jock married." There was a brief period when I wondered if he said it out of regret because he, too, had been rejected but I soon realized that the antipathy was real and that Libby was as irrelevant to him as the women he'd slept with before we married. That's not to say I wouldn't have clawed his eyes out if I'd known about the affair at the time�objectivity needs time and distance to develop�but to come across it when the ashes were cold was a reason for private grief only, and not for a fanning of the embers.
The Shape of Snakes Page 22
