Tree of Hands

by Ruth Rendell

  Two kids and all that baggage! Terence didn’t want to get involved but it was too late. She had already read the label on Jessica’s suitcase that said Singapore and the name of the hotel he was going to. He could see in her eyes the greedy relief that she had found herself an escort and a porter for the next twenty hours. It would distract his mind, there was that to it. Talking to her would stop him dwelling on the Goldschmidts. And when they got to Singapore . . .

  ‘Bill’s going to be stuck in Penang till April,’ she was saying, ‘but he’s got an ayah all lined up for me.’

  Terence understood vaguely that she meant some sort of nurse for the kids. He thought he could do worse than enjoy her undivided companionship for a day or two if that was what fate had in store for him. The older child, sexless in velour dungarees and crew cut, though called Miranda, climbed on to his knee and began fiddling with the zip of the nylon bag. Terence hoped the ayah would be waiting at the airport, preferably on the tarmac.

  He carried three cases, pushed one that was on wheels, the nylon bag hooked over his left wrist. Jane carried the baby and two more cases while Miranda hung on to the hem of her jacket, grizzling. There were no policemen loitering around the check-in desks – one of Terence’s fears. Relief at getting rid of the cases was succeeded by anxiety at going through baggage scrutiny. And for Terence it was a literal scrutiny. He thought it was all up with him when they said they wanted the nylon bag opened and then opened it so that half the contents fell out. But no one said anything. They turned over the wads of notes with the same indifference as that with which they had handled Jane’s package of disposable napkins. He saw Jane looking at the money but she didn’t say anything.

  They all went into the duty-free shop where Jane bought perfume. Terence didn’t buy anything. One hour to go and he wouldn’t need whisky any more, he had never really liked the taste. They had coffee and Miranda had a packet of crisps, and while they were sitting at the table wondering whether to have a sandwich or wait for food on the plane, Qantas announced that boarding was about to begin on their flight QF2 for Bahrain, Singapore and Sydney. It was only the first call, there was a long time to go yet.

  Jane said she thought she ought to go to the loo, or rather to the mothers’ room if they had one, and change the baby’s napkin. She might not have another chance for hours. Everyone knew what it was like queuing up on those flights. Terence thought she would take Miranda with her but she didn’t, and as soon as her mother was out of sight, Miranda knocked over a nearly full cup of coffee. The coffee flooded over Terence’s nylon bag. He ripped open the bag through which coffee had begun to seep and as he did so, Miranda, contrite perhaps or merely frightened, jumped on to him and locked her arms round his neck.

  Passengers were now getting up all round Terence and flocking towards the gates. He decided to go too and to hell with Jane and her kids and her bags and her ayah. He struggled to his feet, still holding or being held by Miranda, and as he tried to prise her off found himself looking into the face of Detective Inspector Leatham. Recognition was mutual, immediate. Terence experienced the same sick, dizzy feeling of faintness he had had when Leatham called on him in Spring Close.

  Leatham had been sitting at a table three or four yards away. He got up and came slowly towards Terence, looked at Terence and at Miranda and said:

  ‘Jason Stratford, I presume?’

  The words were audible to Terence but they didn’t register as more than sounds, as an unknown foreign language might. His nerve burst and frayed open like a too tightly stretched string. He let out a low inarticulate cry. He thrust Miranda off him, grabbed the open bag and ran. The bag peeled itself inside out and the contents tumbled out behind him like the laying of a paper chase: razor, newspaper, underclothes, toothpaste, tranquillizers, a hundred and thirty-two thousand pounds . . .

  25

  THEY WERE TAKING the book back. Holding Jay’s hand, Benet went into the Winterside library on a March morning, handed the book across the counter and tried to explain how she happened to have it. Though not a member, she had happened to be in the library some months before, her little boy had picked it up and inadvertently . . .

  The animal picture book was large and gaudily coloured, hardly an unconsidered trifle. But the librarian seemed glad to get any missing book back, on any terms. Benet could have returned it by post. She had made herself come here to this corner of Tottenham, to Lordship Avenue and Winterside, because she felt that if she didn’t do it now she might never have the courage again, she might avoid it for ever, making elaborate detours whenever it was necessary to cross this part of London. The book was only an excuse to fetch her for a painful but cathartic look at the neighbourhood where Edward had died and Carol Stratford with him.

  As on their previous visit she had left the car parked in Winterside Road. It was a sparkling icy day, daffodils out but not a leaf bud showing, not a breath of spring in the air. Jay was growing out of his duffel coat. He might need a new one before the warm weather came. She strapped him into his seat and drove the car into Woodhouse’s garage to fill up with petrol.

  A young girl served her. Benet went into the office with her to pay with a credit card. Tom Woodhouse was sitting at a desk, talking into the phone. She looked at him, in two minds whether to declare herself when he put the receiver back or to let it go, and then she looked harder. A curious feeling that was a mixture of wonder and of intense embarrassment washed over her. It was almost like an unexpected and unwelcome encounter with an old lover. Yet, of course, Tom Woodhouse had never been her lover. He had been Carol Stratford’s. There was no doubt of that.

  The resemblance was uncanny, something to send a shiver down the spine. The man on the phone had a high forehead, sea-blue eyes, a hook of a nose and a long chin. His eyebrows were blond thatch eaves and his hair a sandy fair. The first time she had seen Jay, hadn’t he forcibly reminded her of someone she had once known? She signed the chit mechanically. Tom Woodhouse said goodbye into the phone, put the receiver down, wrote something on a pad, slowly raised his head.

  Benet took her receipt and, keeping her head turned, walked quickly out of the office. The last thing she wanted was to renew her acquaintance with this man who was Jay’s undoubted father.

  It was a week since she had seen Ian and the departure for Canada was less than a fortnight away. He rang the doorbell at seven, just after Jay had gone to bed.

  ‘I’m not coming with you,’ she said, moving out of his embrace. ‘But you know that, you’ve guessed, haven’t you?’

  His face wore the same heavy look of sadness that had been there when she told him that it hadn’t occurred to her to tell him she was going to Spain, that she had forgotten him. She had been three days with Mopsa and her father, the news of Edward’s death had reached her, before she remembered to phone Ian. And yet it hadn’t been a lack of love, only that fear drives out all other emotion.

  ‘I know you’re not but I don’t know why,’ he said.

  She was going to tell him a lie in order to avoid all the lie-telling of a future. Any future for them without those lies would be impossible for he would never connive at what she had done. On the other hand, a future of lies in which she passed on to him one invention and prevarication after another to account for Jay’s presence, legal status, continued situation as her son, was equally unthinkable. The relationship would be destroyed even if he believed her – and she didn’t think he would believe her for long.

  Some future lover, some man in time to come – if such a man ever appeared – would know nothing of her history, would be content with a word or two of explanation. But Ian was the only living person who knew Jay could not be the James Archdale of his passport, the only person who had known James and knew that he was dead. So she had to make a choice and she had made it. Ian or Jay – she had chosen. And first she had to tell that lie.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ian. I just don’t care enough for you to follow you half across the world. I thought I loved you and
I do, but not enough.’

  He wouldn’t accept it. ‘We could try six months’ separation. You could see how you felt after that.’

  ‘I shall feel the same.’

  She knew she would never see him again after that evening. ‘I’ll buy your books,’ he said. ‘If I can’t be anything else to you, I’ll be your constant reader.’

  She cried after he had gone. She poured herself a drink and sat in the study room and took cold comfort from the fact that her last obstacle was gone. It was she herself who had chosen it, who had deliberately mapped out her life on these lines. Cold comfort in a lonely midnight house.

  Jay woke up and cried for a drink of water. She might as well go to bed, she thought, and not come down again. She sat him on her lap and gave him the cup of water to drink. He went back into the cot willingly, closing his eyes even before she had covered him up. A little ruefully and with a lot of hope she looked at him. Some words of Edward’s came back to her.

  ‘Well, Jay,’ she said, ‘it looks as if we’re in business.’

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  Epub ISBN: 9781409068990

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow in 2004

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  Copyright © Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd 1984

  Ruth Rendell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 1984

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099434702