by Ruth Rendell
“No.”
“When you went to see old Urban didn’t he say something about Livingstone having to pay Capital Gains Tax on one of his properties if he sold them both?”
“Yes, he sort of reminded Martin about some law about that. He said if Martin owned two flats and sold them both, he’d, have to pay this tax on one of them. Thirty per cent of his profit, he said. What’s he done, Tim? He didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t mention it after we’d, left the solicitor’.s And I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t break things off either …”
“Break things off?” said Tim. “You’ll see that guy every night till completion if it kills you and me. Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s buying it in your name so that he can avoid giving the government two or three grand tax. In other words, in a couple of weeks’ time, barring acts of God, that forty-two thousand quid luxury apartment will become the exclusive, undisputed, unencumbered property of mah honey chile.”
“Oh, Tim, I really have done it, haven’t I? This is better than a ring or a bit of furniture.”
“And revenge will be very sweet,” said Tim.
He put out his arms and she came into them and they hugged each other.
XV
It was rare for any post to arrive for Finn or Lena. There would be the electricity and gas bills every quarter and the little pension from Finn’s father’s firm, and at Christmas a card from Brenda. That was all. Months could pass by without Finn’s receiving a single item addressed to himself, and it was therefore with the nearest he ever got to astonishment that he picked up the long white envelope from the doormat.
The direction was to T. Finn Esq. and it was typewritten. Finn was on his way to Modena Road where he was papering walls. When he was in the van he took out the letter and read it.
Dear Mr. Finn,
I do not think we have ever met, though our mothers are old friends. Perhaps Mrs. Finn has mentioned to you that they had tea together a few weeks ago. I expect you will be surprised to hear from me, but the fact is that I have a business proposition to put to you and I wonder if we could meet and discuss this. Could you ring me at the above number in the next few days? I shall be there between 9:30 and 5:30.
Yours sincerely,
Martin W. Urban.
Finn started the van and drove off to Parliament Hill Fields. Martin Urban had been wrong in saying they had never met. Finn seldom forgot a thing like that. He remembered Martin quite clearly as a spotty adolescent when he himself was eleven or twelve. Lena had taken him with her to Copley Avenue because it was the school holidays and Queenie was ill with flu. He had opened a bedroom door and seen Martin sitting at a desk, using a protractor and a set square. The older boy had turned on him a look which Finn at the time had taken for outrage and disgust but which later he understood. That look had in fact only been astonishment that Finn had seemed to be attempting to bridge the huge social gulf between them.
What did the grown-up Martin want of him now? If it was true that Mrs. Urban had admired the partitioning of Lena’s room, it might be that she had talked about it to her son and he was looking for a builder to do a conversion job for him. Finn was more or less willing, providing the money was right and he wasn’t hassled about time. The words “business proposition” seemed to imply something like that. He let himself into the house in Modena Road and walked from room to room, assessing the stage he had reached. Once the paper was up in the ground floor front room and the hall floor retiled, he would be finished and at leisure. But he would see how he got on before making that phone call.
Remembering that look of Martin’s all those years ago in Copley Avenue, he was slightly surprised to read that bit about their mothers being old friends. “A few weeks ago” wasn’t exactly accurate either. A few months was more like it; it had been November 16, he recalled, his birthday. Just as well, he reflected, that the woman hadn’t been back again during the terrible month, the weeks of Lena’s sufferings. No wonder he hadn’t yet finished the work for Kaiafas …
She had said there were maggots coming out of the walls. That had been at the beginning when she could still see colours and smell smells, the real and the imaginary. After that she could only see in black and white and grey and had lain crying all night, all day. He had never left her. If she had gone to the hospital they would have put her in the locked ward. He hadn’t dared sleep unless she was drugged and out, for she would spring upon him if she thought he was off guard. Twice she had tried to set the place on fire, and when he prevented this she burned herself instead. There were still burn scars on both her wrists and in the hollows of her elbows.
But she had come out of it at last. She always did, though Finn was afraid the time might come when she wouldn’t. She could hear people’s voices again and see colours again and remember who he was. On the day she held his hand and asked him if he had worn her birthday present yet he knew she was better and he brought the bird back from downstairs. Mrs. Gogarty started coming in to give him a break and he got back to work. In the past week Lena had twice been up to Second Chance, and this afternoon Mrs. Gogarty was taking her to a street market-somewhere in Islington, he thought it was, miles away from Parliament Hill Fields.
Coming back to Lord Arthur Road at six, Finn found them occupied with the Tarot, not telling fortunes this time but studying the pictures on certain cards. Mrs. Gogarty had just bought the pack off a stall for seventy-five pence. It appeared that the Hermit and Eight of Cups were missing. Lena gave a strong shiver as she picked up and looked at the Ten of Swords. It showed the body of a man, pinned to the ground by the ten sharp blades down the length of his back and lying by the waters of a lake. Finn covered up the card with the pretty Queen of Pentacles, and he thought how if ever he killed again it must look like an accident-it must be taken for an accident, for Lena’s sake.
She gave him a tremulous smile and began to produce from a bag for his inspection the things she had bought that day, a man’s trilby hat, a pair of wooden elephant book-ends, a green china quadruped with its tail missing, half a dozen copies of a magazine called Slimming Naturally.
Later on, Mr. Beard, who kept the fur and suede cleaner’s shop in Brecknock Road and who had once tried, with some success, to raise up the spirit of Cornelius Agrippa, was coming round and bringing his Ouija board. Finn felt a quiet relief that things were getting back to normal. While they waited for Mr. Beard, Mrs. Gogarty set out the Tarot for Finn and foretold an unexpected accession of wealth.
Finn waited a couple of days before phoning Martin Urban, and then he did so from a phone box by Gospel Oak Station at ten in the morning.
“You wanted me to ring you. The name’s Finn.”
“Oh, yes, good morning. How do you do? Nice of you to phone. I expect you gathered from my letter that I’ve got a proposition to put to you that’s rather to your advantage. It’s not something I’d, feel like discussing on the phone. Could we-er, meet and have a word, d’you think?”
“If you want,” said Finn.
“A pub? I’ll suggest somewhere half-way between our respective homes, shall I? How about the Archway Tavern? If tonight would suit you, we could say eight tonight in the Archway Tavern.”
He rang off without asking Finn how he would recognise him or telling him what he himself looked like. Finn wasn’t much bothered by that, he knew he would somehow smell out in the man the studious and superior adolescent of long ago. But for a little while he did wonder why, if Martin Urban only wanted him to divide a room into two or make two rooms into one, he hadn’t felt like even hinting at it on the phone.
Mr. Bradley was spending the evening as well as most of the day with Lena. His daughter-in-law was having an operation for gallstones, and he couldn’t get into the house till his son came back from the hospital at nine. It was a cold, misty evening with not much traffic about and few people. Finn wore the yellow pullover and the black scarf with the coins on, and Lena’s birthday present. He walked into the Archway Tavern at two
minutes past eight and stood still just inside the door, looking about him. As he had expected, he knew Martin Urban at once, a tallish, square-built man, becoming burly and looking older than his age. He was sitting at a table, reading the Evening Standard, and as Finn’s pale piercing eyes fixed him he lifted his own. Finn walked up to him and he got to his feet.
“Mr. Finn?”
Finn nodded.
“How do you do? You’re very punctual. It’s good of you to come. I’ve been thinking about it. I didn’t give you much notice, did I? I hope that’s all right.” Finn didn’t say anything. He sat down. “What will you drink?”
“Pineapple juice,” said Finn.
“Pineapple juice? What, just by itself? You’re sure that’s all right?”
“Just pineapple juice,” said Finn. “The Britvic.”
He expected Martin Urban to drink beer. He was the sort who always would in pubs except perhaps for the last drink. But he brought himself a large whisky, at least a double measure, and a small bottle of soda water. Finn supposed he was nervous about something or someone and that someone was very likely himself. He inspired trepidation in otherwise quite confident people, but he didn’t know how to put them at their ease and wouldn’t have done so even if he had known. He sat silent, pouring the thick yellow juice from the bottle into a small squat glass. They hadn’t been alone at their table, but now the other man who sat there finished his beer, picked up his coat, and left.
“And how’s your mother these days?”
“She’s okay,” said Finn.
Martin Urban turned his chair away from the table and edged it a little nearer to Finn’.s “Cheers,” he said and he drank some of his whisky. “My mother does see her sometimes, you know. She looks in when she gets a chance.” He waited for a rejoinder to this but none came. “I think it was November when she last saw her. She thought-well, she was a bit worried about her.”
“Well, well,” said Finn.
“She was always very fond of her, you see. They’d, known each other for a long time.” It was apparent to Finn that he was trying to avoid saying that Lena had been Mrs. Urban’s cleaner, a statement about which Finn wouldn’t have cared at all. He swilled the juice round his mouth, savouring it. A particularly good batch, he thought. “That stuff you’re drinking, is it all right?”
Finn nodded. He watched Martin Urban’s face flush to a dark brick-red. “I don’t want you to think I’m criticising, finding fault or anything like that. If you don’t own your own home these days or have a council place it’s pretty difficult to find anywhere to live, let alone anywhere decent. And to buy somewhere you don’t just have to be earning good money, you need a bit of capital as wejl. What I’m trying to say is, when my mother told me the way Mrs. Finn was living-through no fault of anybody’s, actually-I thought, well, maybe I could do something to change all that, to sort of benefit you both, because we’re all old friends, after all, aren’t we?”
Finn finished his drink. He said nothing. He was beginning to be aware that an offer was to be made to him, but for what and in exchange for what he couldn’t tell. This man was as shy of approaching the point as Kaiafas was. Reminded of the Cypriot, he seemed to hear a voice saying in another pub, “I give it to my friend Feen instead,” and at that recollection, at certain apparent parallels, he raised his eyes and let them rest on the flushed, square, somewhat embarrassed, face in front of him.
“I hope I haven’t offended you.”
Finn shook his head.
“Good. Then I’ll come to the point.” Martin Urban looked round to see that they weren’t overheard and said in a lower voice, “I could manage to let you have ten thousand pounds. I’m afraid I can’t make it more than that. You’d have to go outside London, of course.”
Finn’s gaze fell and rose again. He was overwhelmed by the munificence of this offer. His fame had indeed spread before him, and it wasn’t his fame as a plumber and decorator. Yet one to him were fame and shame; he was without vanity. He drank the remains of his pineapple juice and said, “It’s a lot of money.”
“You wouldn’t do it for less.”
Finn did a rare thing for him. He smiled. He spoke one word. “When?”
Martin Urban seemed slightly taken aback. “When you like. As soon as possible. You’re going to accept then?”
“Oh, yes. Why not?”
“Good. That’s splendid. I’m very happy you don’t feel you have to put up any show of refusal, that sort of thing. It wastes so much time. Let’s drink to it, shall we?” He fetched another pineapple juice and a second whisky. Facing Finn again, he seemed to become doubtful and his expression took on its former shade of mystification. “I have made myself plain? You have understood me?”
Rather impatiently Finn said, “Sure. You can leave it to me.
“That’s fine. It’s just that I thought you might not exactly have known what I meant. Would you like me to send you a cheque?”
“I haven’t got a bank account. I’d, like cash.”
“Cash? My dear chap, that’d, make quite a parcel.”
Finn nodded. “Pad it out a bit with newspaper. You can let me have half now and half later. That way you needn’t let me have the rest till you know I’ve done what you want. Right?”
“I suppose so. Are you going to be able to do it on your own? You know how to go about it?”
“Find someone else then,” said Finn.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I have offended you. Anyway, it’s no business of mine how you go about it. I want to think that once I’ve let you have the money you’re on your own, you’re free.” Martin Urban swallowed his whisky very rapidly. He wiped his mouth, he sighed. “But you will-you will do it, won’t you?”
“Haven’t I said?”
He was far worse than Kaiafas, Finn thought. And now, as if it was any concern of his where Lena lived or what Lena did, he began talking once more about buying her a house, moving her out of Lord Arthur Road.
“You can still get small houses for less than ten thousand in the country towns. If you don’t mind going a good distance there are still building firms putting up houses for that. I’d, get her to decide where she’d, like to live-near some relative maybe-and then you and she could have a Saturday out there, calling on the agents.”
Finn understood it. Martin Urban wanted him out of the way, a long way away, once the deed was done. He didn’t understand how ludicrous it was recommending some country town for Lena, Lena who would go mad, madder, maddest away from her precious tiny segmented home, the only home she could bear to live in, away too from her friends, from Mrs. Gogarty and Mr. Bradley and Mr. Beard. Finn almost felt like telling Martin Urban to shut up, to think, to look at reality, but he didn’t do this. He sat silent and impassive while the other talked on about surveyors’ reports and freeholds and frontages and party walls. For he was understanding more and more. Martin Urban, like Kaiafas, believed that if he talked in this way of mundane, harmless, and practical matters he wouldn’t quite have to realise the enormity of the deed for which he was to pay those thousands of pounds.
At last he paused for breath and perhaps for some sign of appreciation. Finn got up, nodded to him and left without speaking again. He had been given no further instructions, but he didn’t doubt that such would be sent to him in due course.
Over the Archway concourse the snow was dancing down in millions of soft plumy flakes that whirled like fireflies in the light from the yellow lamps.
XVI
The parcel containing the first instalment of the money was brought to Finn by an express delivery service. A man in a green uniform handed it to him at the door. Finn took it upstairs. The house in Lord Arthur Road had its Saturday smell of baked beans and marijuana as against its weekday smell of stale waste bins and marijuana. Finn had unwrapped the parcel and was counting the money when he heard Lena coming down the stairs. Her footsteps were almost jaunty. Mr. Beard was taking her to a meeting of the Tufnell Theosophists. L
ena didn’t have many men friends so it was an exciting event for her. Finn opened his door.
“Will you be bringing him back with you?”
Smiling a little and bridling, she said she didn’t know. She would like to; she would ask him. Her eyes shone. She was wearing the mauve dress with the fringe and over it a red cloak lined in fraying satin. If you half-closed your eyes and looked at her you might fancy you were seeing-not a young girl, never that, but perhaps the ghost of a young girl. She was like a moth from whose wings most of the dust has rubbed away, a faded fluttering moth or a skeleton leaf. She laid her hand on Finn’s arm and looked up into his face as if he were the parent and she the child.
“Here,” he said, “get something for your tea then.” He thrust a bundle of notes, forty, fifty, pounds into her hands.
She smelt of camphor, the mistletoe-bough bride who has been resurrected after fifty years in the trunk. Over the banisters he watched her go down, stuffing notes into her Dorothy bag, into her cloak pocket, miraculously spilling none. Rich now, young again, sane again, down the dirty pavements to her psychic swain. Finn returned to his room.
Putting the money away with the rest in the bag under his mattress, he reflected once more on Martin Urban’s recommendations. At the thought of Lena alone in a small country town, of Lena alone anywhere, he smiled a narrow smile of contempt. For a moment he imagined her removed from Lord Arthur Road, the only place he could remember where she had found fragments of happiness and peace; removed from him and her dear friends and the second-hand shops and her little cosy segmented space. He thought of the terrified feral mania that would overcome her when she smelt the fresh air and felt the wind and had to hunt for sleep, always elusive, in the spacious bedroom of a bungalow.
