Reprise

by Claire Rayner

  She turned and looked at the box. A long narrow rectangle of dull grey metal, deep sided, with a flat lid over it. What was in it? Money? Banknotes in wads? Or handfuls of jewels, like the ones in children’s stories about pirates? Twinkling gold and silver and diamonds, heaped high?

  She put her hand out and lifted the lid. Beneath it was a pile of paper. Envelopes tied up with white tape; squares of pasteboard, grubby and dog-eared, with rubber bands round them; folded sheets, held with little bulldog paper-clips.

  She put out one finger and touched the pile of pasteboard, thinking ‘Photographs –’ and suddenly a scent arose from the box; faded and far away, like the sound of a piano playing in a distant room in a big house, and she closed her eyes as memory overwhelmed her …

  Also by Claire Rayner:

  THE MEDDLERS

  A TIME TO HEAL

  MADDIE

  CLINICAL JUDGEMENTS

  POSTSCRIPTS

  DANGEROUS THINGS

  LONDON LODGINGS

  PAYING GUESTS

  FIRST BLOOD

  SECOND OPINION

  THIRD DEGREE

  Reprise

  CLAIRE RAYNER

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-031-8

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

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  Copyright © Claire Rayner 1980, 2010

  All rights reserved

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  e-ISBN 978-1-84982-031-8

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Dedication

  For Terence Blacker,

  with thanks for fighting back

  1

  When Theo had come and told her that Dolly was dying she didn’t believe him. Not at first. She had stood there in the middle of all the crazy hubbub backstage at the Roundhouse and stared at him, at his tight expression of concern mixed with urgency, and thought, ‘He looks nice. That black shirt was the nicest one I ever bought him. He looks nice.’

  ‘Darling, do you hear me? She’s dying. I’m sorry to be so brutal about it, but Oliver said there’s no doubt, and she’s asking for you. It’s really very urgent –’

  ‘Dying?’ Maggy said.

  ‘I know it’s difficult to take in – Christ, but this is one hell of a place to – look, I’ve got the car outside. I can have you there in under half an hour. I’ll give you all the details while we go. Come on, love.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Theo,’ she had said, trying to sound reasonable and pleased with herself because she did. ‘I’ve heard these panics before. And I’ve got a gig here, in case you’d forgotten. Have you forgotten?’

  ‘A gig – for Christ’s sake, Maggy, a charity thing? So they’ll manage without you. There just isn’t the time now to –’

  ‘Now, what sort of attitude is that? Only a charity thing? I’m ashamed of you.’

  She had smiled at him, bantering and still reasonable; very, very reasonable. ‘That from you, Theo? And here’s me thinking you’re a show-must-go-on-man!’

  One of the other bands pushed past them on their way to the stage as a roar went up from the audience, six sweating men wearing old tail coats and celluloid collars over shirtless chests, humping brass instruments. A hell of a group to follow a punk band; she’d told them that when they planned the bloody evening in the first place, but whoever listened to sense in this lousy business? By the time her own group were on, top of the bill though they were, the poor bastards out there wouldn’t know their arses from their elbows, let alone her sort of music from the crap they’d had thrown at them before. She’d been half minded to walk out anyway once she’d realized what a stinking show it was. To hell with the Musicians’ Benevolent –

  But not now. Not now that her mother was dying.

  So, she hadn’t gone. Theo had argued for five minutes or so, trying to convince her it was real this time, a real emergency, and then had gone to phone Oliver. And she’d taken her people on the stage and salvaged the evening, making the sort of hit she always did. Maggy Dundas. Who could touch her? No one. Not even her mother, dying.

  She’d gone to the funeral though. Golder’s Green Crematorium, a stinking hot afternoon, one of the only hot afternoons in this whole miserable summer. She’d gone so that she could wear casual ordinary clothes and look blank and unconcerned while the others sat around looking ostentatiously lugubrious. Oliver, his face pouched and sodden, had obviously been crying for hours; sour-faced Ida, looking even more sour than she usually did, if that were possible, and the chamber maids and kitchen staff and that supercilious bitch from reception, all looking embarrassed when they caught her eye. Oh, that had been good. And she had done it exactly as she had meant to, sitting still and silent until that whey-faced creature in his black cassock began intoning words over the coffin, waiting there to be slid into the furnace behind, and then, when he’d started on about how good and compassionate Dolly had been, how careful of her staff’s happiness, how beloved by her friends, getting up and quietly walking out. Past Theo’s straight-ahead stare, and Oliver’s mournful cow eyes and Ida’s glare. Oh, that had been a good moment. That had paid back some of the anger of the years.

  Some of it. She stood now on the hot pavement of the Haymarket staring towards Leicester Square, feeling the heat bite through her thin shoes and her throat thick with the stink of diesel fumes and fried onions from the hot-dog stalls and sweating tourists, and thought about it. All that misery and humiliation and sheer frustration that Dolly had inflicted on her. Whether she had meant it or not, that was how it had been. Maggy thought of Gerald and Oliver and her father and let anger seep back into her. Dolly had been stupid and mindlessly unkind and the fact that she had meant so little of it somehow made it worse, not better. If she’d been deliberately cruel, it would have been easier. Then I’d have a right to hate her, she whispered deep in her mind. As it is, I don’t, I don’t hate her. No I don’t. Yes I do. Oh, hell, why can’t I just stop caring? Damn Dolly. Damn her to hell and back. If only I could forget it all. I’m thirty-seven years old. Thirty-seven years old and I’m still feeling the miseries of sixteen. Bloody Dolly.

  Someone stopped in front of her, clutching a map in one brown hand, jabbering and gesticulating first at the map and then towards Leicester Square, looking at her hopefully, and she stared down at him, a small brown man, probably Malaysian, and said wearily, ‘Oh, get out of my way. Bloody tourists –’ and turned and walked into the big building waiting there for her. She wanted to shout aloud to the people she passed, wanted them to know that she wasn’t coming here out of greed. She didn’t want any of Dolly’s possessions; rejecting them, whatever there was, would be the final insult, the final shutting of the door on all the miseries of those years that had pleated themselves into such a burden of memories. But that would be silly. For a moment she managed to stand back from her self-pity and her rage and grin, a little. The sooner all this was settled the better. Then she’d be able to push it all into the past, and get on with living now. Wouldn’t she?

  ‘Where is she, then?’ Ida said, and poured another cup of tea. It was tea the way he liked it, strong and dark, not the weak scented stuff Maggy went in for, and he felt comforted by it and smiled up at Ida.
She nodded briefly back, because Ida never smiled. But he knew she liked him, and it didn’t matter to him that she never smiled, though it had always infuriated Maggy.

  ‘She’s meeting Mr Friese,’ he said and sipped his tea, not looking at Ida now. ‘In the Haymarket.’

  She put the pot down on the table, thumping it hard on its cork mat and staring at him. ‘The Haymarket? D’you mean she’s going to the safe deposit?’

  ‘That’s what Friese said.’ Theo drank some more tea, and felt discomfort rising in him. Friese had had no right to tell him as much as he had. The man was supposed to be acting in Maggy’s interest, dammit. He’d been Dolly’s man, originally, of course, but now Dolly was dead and Maggy was her only relation so it was Maggy he should be loyal to. Yet he’d chattered on to Theo about all sorts of things, even though Theo had tried to stop him. Thinking of it now, he was embarrassed. And somewhere deep underneath excited and something else; frightened? He shook his head sharply, with that tic he sometimes suffered from and drank some more tea.

  ‘She kept that box as the most private thing she had.’ Ida said heavily. ‘Not even I ever got to see it. I mean, I knew the thing was there, and that was as close as anyone ever got. She never told her.’ Ida still could not bring herself to use Maggy’s name. ‘Dolly said to me once that all her life that had been worth living was in that box. Never wanted no one to see it but herself. And now Friese is taking her to it.’

  ‘It seems Dolly told him to,’ Theo said. ‘Look, Ida, I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t help it. Dammit, I didn’t want to pry into anyone else’s affairs! I told him that Maggy and I – he knows we only live together. Why he should try to treat me as her husband I don’t know. But there it was – he just went on and on, even though I told him it was none of my affair.’

  ‘You’re the nearest to a husband she’s ever had. Or likely to, more fool you.’ Ida sat down and began to drink her own tea with a controlled ferocity that made it seem she would finish by biting the cup itself and chewing it up. ‘And that’s more than she deserves.’

  ‘Look, Ida,’ Theo said and stopped, and then tried again. But first he got to his feet and walked across the little room to peer out at the reception desk and the big foyer beyond that. Not that anyone could hear anything outside this room; Ida was much too canny not to provide herself with anything but the safest and most private of offices, but you never knew. And it embarrassed him to be talking about Maggy in this way.

  ‘Look, Maggy isn’t the easiest of persons in the world. I know that. You’ve got your own ideas about her and they’re yours – no –’ he said quickly as she opened her mouth to say something. ‘No, I just don’t want to know. I – Maggy and I have been together a while now, and we suit each other. We’ve no claims on each other, no boring ties we don’t choose to have, but you might as well get used to the fact that I’m not prepared to listen to you slanging her. I won’t listen to her slanging you, either – frankly, it’s too damned boring. But I like you, and I’d like to see you happy. You’ve been part of this place a long time, one way and another, and from what Friese told me, I think you will be for a lot longer. No, he’ll tell you himself. Or Maggy will. Right now, let’s get it clear – I’m not taking sides, all right? Willing to be – oh, I don’t know precisely – not referee, that’s for sure, but well, an arbitrator if you like, if you ever need one. But don’t ask me to listen to you going on about Maggy. Because I won’t.’

  ‘I thought you’d left her?’ Ida said, her voice flat and conversational. ‘What’s all this about when you’ve left her?’

  ‘I’ve moved out of the flat for a while, that’s all,’ Theo said after a moment, and sat down again. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ve left for good, though, does it? Like I said, Maggy and I have been together a long time. One way and another. You don’t end that in a hurry, especially at a time when – well, it’s stressful, for Maggy. In her own way she’s suffering –’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Ida said harshly. ‘I’ll bloody bet. And you’re looking at this place and thinking it’s worth more than tuppence ha’penny? Could that be part of it?’

  His jaw tensed, but he didn’t rise. A very Ida crack, that. Always on the look-out for a way to make a man feel cheap and bad, however altruistic his motives, even if she liked him. But he wasn’t going to let her get through to him, not this time. So he just looked at her and shook his head with exaggerated patience and said nothing.

  She drank more tea and then said abruptly. ‘What else did he tell you? That Friese? About the box?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that Dolly had it and had left instructions that Maggy was to be given access to it as soon as possible after her death. That’s all.’

  Uncomfortable again Theo said, ‘I gather it’s one of the conditions of the will. She can’t inherit anything else until she’s been through the box. Something like that –’

  Ida looked triumphant suddenly, her heavy face lifting, though still with no trace of any smile on it. ‘Christ, you’re a right pair, aren’t you? You hanging around to see what she gets, and her doing all she can to get her hands on Dolly’s bits and pieces! A right pair.’

  Theo stood up, and picked up his hat. He was wearing a wide-brimmed straw, very fetching, very trendy this summer. ‘If you’re going to follow that line, Ida, I’m going. I came because I thought you might like a little company. I’ve always liked you, in spite of yourself, and I was sorry for you, with Dolly dead. I thought you might be in need of a little company. But I can see –’

  ‘You can see bloody clear that you were wrong. The last thing I need is anyone crying into their beer over Dolly for my comfort. I’ll sort myself out well enough. No call for you to come patronizing me, any more than there ever has been. So sling it.’

  ‘I’ll see you in a few days.’ Theo was being imperturbable now. He was quite good at that when he put his mind to it. ‘When you’re feeling better. Don’t bother to see me out –’

  She didn’t move, sitting there staring at him over the rim of her cup, which she was holding in both hands, and he smiled and bobbed his head and went, pushing out past the reception desk into the foyer.

  The receptionist, a thin narrow-faced girl with her hair pulled back into a sleek knot, very unfashionable but curiously attractive all the same, was fiddling with the flowers in the big jardinière in the far corner, and as he came out she bobbed her head at him and went away towards the cloakrooms to fetch water, leaving him alone there.

  He stood and looked around, almost as though he were seeing it for the first time. Not a big place, but big enough, the Westpark, and it compared reasonably well with the rest of the myriad of small hotels clustered around this part of Bayswater. The foyer where he was standing was warmly carpeted, leather furnished, welcoming, and certainly clean, which was more than you could say for many of the other places around. He grinned then; as if any place that Ida was involved with would be other than clean! He could see the dining room on the far side, tables set ready for dinner, every knife in place, even though it was still only four in the afternoon, and the lounge on the other side with its big sofas and velvet curtains equally perfect and empty of people, and thought briefly of Dolly, dead Dolly. How much part had she actually had in running the place? Would it all slip now, become sleazy and tatty the way other small hotels were, now she was dead? Not if Ida had anything to do with it, he told himself. Ida would carry on as she always had, being Dolly’s prop and stay even though Dolly wasn’t there.

  And how would she react to the information that Friese had so indiscreetly let drop in his ear, but not yet told Ida herself? He thought of Ida going on working for Maggy as she had for Dolly and shook his head, and looked round again. The place must be worth – what? It was made up of three big old houses, so there must be around thirty bedrooms, maybe half of them with bathrooms of a sort, and there were the public rooms, and the kitchens – it could hardly fetch much under two or three hundred thousand, depending on the length of the lease of course
, and there was the goodwill –

  He tightened his jaw and pushed the thought away. It wasn’t a safe one, not at the moment, now that he’d moved out of Maggy’s flat. Not that he intended things to stay that way. Give it a week or two until all the tension had loosened a bit, and he’d go back. She’d have him back, of course she would, and then they could think about the future. Maybe a quarter of a million. Not to be thought about.

  The receptionist came back and he nodded at her and walked towards the double doors that led to the hot street outside, but as he came level with the archway that led to the lounge there was a soft sound and Oliver came out. He stood there staring at him lugubriously and then said, in that odd breathy voice he used sometimes, ‘Theo. Old Theo. How’re you, friend? Theo.’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Theo said repressively, and tugged at the brim of his hat, to make it as clear as he could that he was leaving, had no time to stand and talk, but Oliver didn’t get the message.

  ‘Where’re you going, Theo? Don’t go – come and have a drink, hey? Just a little drink.’

  ‘No thanks, Norwood. I must be on my way. Things to do, you know –’

  Not that he couldn’t do with a drink. It had been a rough day, one way and another, and there would be no point in going back to the office now, not at four in the afternoon. But the pubs wouldn’t be open yet so he’d have to do without. But Oliver seemed to pick up his moment of uncertainty and came and put his hand on his arm, and urged him towards the small bar at the far side of the foyer, next to the dining room.

  ‘Come on, ol’ man. We can have a quick one here. Resident, you see. I’m resident, so I can …’

  His hand was hot through Theo’s sleeve, and he felt a shiver of distaste. There was something about Oliver that he found repellent at the best of times, but now, with his aura of misery and his sagging face with its hangdog eyes he was even more unpleasant.