‘He’s divine, isn’t he?’
‘Who is he exactly?’
‘Ask him. He isn’t dumb. God, and we haven’t even found a table yet.’
They had to make do with a windowsill. Vic noticed that someone had dropped cigarette ash on Rose’s sleeve. He insisted on flicking it off with his handkerchief. In other circumstances she would probably have accepted him as a pleasant addition to the company. There was nothing she could object to in his behaviour. It wasn’t his fault that he happened to be unwelcome. Antonia, the real culprit, bulldozed on regardless.
‘Victor, my love, Rosie wants to know who the bloody hell you are.’
He gave Rose a tolerant smile. ‘Don’t let her bother you. She does it to me all the time. She’s probably told you already, but if it’s of any interest I lecture in chemistry at Imperial College.’
This wasn’t enough for Antonia. ‘Come on, you do research as well. You’ve got your own lab filled with the most fearful-looking chemicals.’ She swung back to Rose. ‘He could poison the whole of London if he wanted to.’
Vic rolled his eyes. ‘Now why should I want to do that?’
‘Tell Rose about your swimming, then. This is really bizarre, darling.’
He sighed. ‘Do I have to? I’m one of that eccentric band of health fanatics who swim in the Serpentine every day. I might as well tell you the rest, or she’ll make me sound like a monster. I have a liking for French films, traditional jazz and, against my better judgement, one deplorably outspoken blonde lady.’
Antonia punched him playfully in the ribs. ‘You mean sophisticated, ducky.’
‘I mean exactly what I said.’
His manner towards her suggested a close relationship. Rose wondered how much Antonia’s husband knew about it.
Antonia gave her a nudge. ‘Now it’s your turn, darling.’
Rose shook her head. ‘Anyone can see what I am: totally out of place in this atmosphere.’
‘Rubbish. Victor, you beast, I’m going to tell you something quite remarkable about my friend Rosie: she’s never comfortable with what she’s wearing. For God’s sake tell her she looks wonderfully elegant in black or she won’t let us stay for another drink.’
Rose sighed and turned up her eyes in exasperation. ‘I don’t mind waiting outside.’
However she stayed and was persuaded to try some vodka in her tomato juice. Vic secured a table for them and handed round Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. Rose hadn’t tried the brand before and found it strong. To mask the taste she finished her drink in a couple of gulps and Vic fetched her another. To her immense relief the focus of conversation shifted away from her. Antonia brought it round to female film stars and held forth about passive, wishy-washy heroines who deserved to be knocked about by sadists like James Mason in The Man in Grey. She said any intelligent woman would have stood up and applauded the scene in The Seventh Veil when Mason crushed Ann Todd’s delicate hands under the piano lid.
Rose said she hadn’t seen the films and anyway violent men had no appeal for her.
‘Sorry, my poppet. Shouldn’t have brought it up.’
Vic looked at his watch and remembered he had a lecture to give at two. They drove back across the river and put him off at Victoria, where he could get the tube.
Antonia blew him a kiss before he disappeared. ‘Isn’t he bliss to be with? I knew you’d get on famously with him.’
‘That isn’t the point. We had things to discuss.’
‘Rosie, my precious lamb, you’d better get one thing clear in your head. Postmortems don’t appeal to me in the least. I did what you asked me to do and now it’s up to you to make the best of it.’
‘Well, yes. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but—’
‘It’s beginning to sound like it.’
Rose gave up protesting. She’d allowed her emotions to dictate to her. She had craved some human contact after the ordeal of the inquest. And the one person in the world she could share her experience with had put up the shutters. Well, perhaps it was sensible. After all, there was nothing of practical importance to be discussed with Antonia. And aside from their reminiscing about the war and their bouts of giggling they hadn’t truly found much in common. Antonia’s brashness was a strong disincentive.
Besides, she would never be able to think of Antonia in the same way, knowing what she had done down there in the tube. Rose told herself that she personally was just as culpable – if not more so – for suggesting it. Yet she would have been incapable of pushing Barry under the train. She was convinced of that. The fact that Antonia had done it in cold blood set her apart. She was uncomfortable to be with now.
Rose said, ‘You’re absolutely right. I must be more self-reliant. You don’t need to come with me this afternoon. Just drop me outside the registry office.’
‘Darling, I’ll do no such thing.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Shut up and listen to me. I won’t be coming in just to hold your hand. You’re going to help me this afternoon.’
‘Help you? How?’
‘You don’t object, do you?’
Rose hesitated. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘Because it wouldn’t show much gratitude, would it, little sister, after I put my precious life at risk to get you out of your particular pickle?’
‘Antonia, I’ve said how grateful I am.’
‘And now you have an opportunity to show it.’
‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
Antonia drove on for some time without answering.
Rose said, ‘So long as it isn’t against the law.’
Antonia laughed. ‘Sweetie, asking to visit the ladies isn’t illegal.’
The fire in the waiting room had gone out, probably days ago. The windows were still painted over for the blackout and last summer’s flypapers hung from the lights. Torn pages from John Bull and Everybody’s littered the threadbare lino. About twenty people sat and stood in silence broken only by a crying child and regular coughing.
Between them, Rose and Antonia got through a packet of ten Senior Service before their turn came. They’d been told that Deaths were upstairs.
‘Next.’
‘You know what to say?’ said Antonia before they went in. ‘You’re looking awfully pale.’
‘Isn’t that the idea?’
The Assistant Registrar (Deaths) Knock Before Entering had a purple twinset that tended to emphasize the papery appearance of her skin. Her coke stove was alight and the clock on the wall was ticking. She was writing the date on the top sheet of her pad of death certificates.
‘Yes?’
Antonia steered Rose forward by the arm, as if she were blind. ‘This is Mrs Bell, whose husband was unfortunately taken from her in an accident last week. I’m her friend.’
‘Is she the informant, or are you?’
‘She is.’
‘Can’t she speak for herself?’
‘She’s rather distressed.’
Rose smiled wanly at Antonia. ‘I’ll try.’
‘The name of the deceased, then?’
‘Bell. Barry Desborough Bell, DFC. Wing Commander.’
‘So his occupation was RAF Officer?’
‘No. Civil Servant. Clerical Officer.’
‘So you mean Wing Commander retired. You should have said so. I could have spoilt the certificate, couldn’t I? What was the date of death?’
‘October 10th.’
‘As long ago as that?’
‘There was an inquest.’
‘I see. I can’t do anything without a report from the coroner, you know.’
‘His office said it would be here this morning.’
‘They promise all sorts of things. Fill in this form, please. This is not the death certificate, but one we require for our records.’
The registrar snatched up a sheaf of papers from her intray and thumbed rapidly through them. Rose dipped the pen in the ink and started to write, prompted once or twice by Antonia
.
‘Your name.’
‘Oh, yes.’
Suddenly Rose put down the pen and turned to Antonia. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
The registrar scraped back her chair. For a moment it seemed that she meant to escort Rose to the toilet. Apparently she thought better of it.
‘Downstairs and to the right at the foot of the staircase. Second door.’
Antonia got up and opened the door. ‘Do you want me to come?’ She mouthed the words, ‘Say you can’t find it.’
‘I can manage. It may be just a drink of water I need.’
Rose went out. The registrar started again on her sheaf of papers, watched by Antonia. The tick of the clock was like a time-bomb.
The door opened again and Rose looked in. ‘I’m fearfully sorry.’
The registrar stared at her. ‘What’s happened? Didn’t you reach it in time?’
‘I couldn’t find it. Could I trouble you to show me?’
With a sigh like a burner in a balloon, the registrar rose, yanked her cardigan across her chest and stumped to the door. ‘It’s perfectly easy to find.’ Halfway downstairs she turned and asked Rose if she was pregnant.
Somehow, Rose held herself in check. She was sorely tempted to ask the same question back. However, she’d agreed to go through with this, so she shook her head and followed meekly down the rest of the stairs to the appropriate room.
At least the woman had the grace to tell her to take her time, although possibly her office floor was paramount in her thoughts.
Rose whiled away some minutes studying the walls. She’d never understood what drove people to publicize their love and hate in such places. Then she washed and dried her hands and returned upstairs. Antonia sprang up and grasped her hand and asked if she felt any better. It seemed like over-acting, though the registrar ignored the performance. She announced that she had located the letter from the coroner’s office. The paperwork was completed in a short time. Rose paid the fee for extra copies of the death certificate and put the documents in her handbag.
Outside in the Bentley, Antonia leaned across and planted a loud kiss on Rose’s cheek.
‘You were brilliant, darling. Brilliant! It was quite a blow when she didn’t go out with you the first time. What an old dragon!’
‘Are you going to tell me what it was all about?’
‘Haven’t you guessed by now? Look.’
Antonia opened her handbag and took out a folded piece of paper. She spread it across her knees and then passed it to Rose.
‘A death certificate?’
‘A blank death certificate – with the duplicate they keep for their records.’
‘You took it from her desk? But it’s got a number on it. She’ll know it’s missing.’
‘She won’t. I’m not soft in the head, Rosie, my love. I nicked it from the bottom of the pad. Careful – we don’t want it looking dogeared, do we?’
Rose frowned and handed the certificate back. Antonia replaced it in her handbag and started the car.
‘Aren’t you going to say I’m a genius?’
Rose didn’t answer.
‘I mean, it couldn’t be easier from now on. We’ve cut out all the snags. We won’t need a doctor’s certificate. We fill in whatever we like and take it to the undertaker.’
‘What couldn’t be easier?’
Antonia smiled and swung the car into the traffic of Kensington High Street.
‘Antonia, what couldn’t be easier?’
‘How would you like to meet my husband?’
11
Antonia was talking like a tour guide as she drove the Bentley up Portland Place and into Park Crescent. The route they were taking, she informed Rose, had been built by John Nash as a triumphal drive for that randy old swank the Prince Regent, all the way from St James’s Park through Regent Street and Portland Place to what was planned to be a royal pleasure pavilion in Regent’s Park. The Crescent had been conceived as a circus, but the funds ran out, so it was cut off halfway, and of course the pleasure pavilion was given the axe as well. Most of Nash’s beautiful terraced houses had now been taken over by embassies, clubs and businesses. Antonia’s was one of the few still in use as a private home.
All this was lost on Rose. Her thinking had stopped at two death certificates, one with Barry’s name on it, the other blank.
She’d been so preoccupied with what had happened in the past ten days that she’d failed entirely to see where it might lead. Barry’s ‘accident’ had been a brilliant remedy for her troubles. Antonia had made it seem simple, doing what was necessary as if it were a common courtesy, like sharing an umbrella. Now, with the same serene indifference, Antonia was planning something else, and Rose was expected to join in. You can’t share an umbrella without walking together.
The car door slammed. Antonia was already out and making an exaggerated gesture to Rose to follow.
‘Come on. You need some strong coffee. You’re looking more and more like that God-forsaken woman on the poster.’
‘Well, the inquest was no picnic.’
Rose followed her between the twin columns at the entrance and up white steps into what could have passed as a set for one of those frothy films about the high life made to distract audiences from post-war austerity. She didn’t believe real people lived in such opulence. You could have held a dance in the hall. The corniced ceiling was high enough to house two crystal chandeliers. There was a crimson carpet. Satin-striped wallpaper. An oval mahogany table with a silver tray for visiting cards.
Antonia tossed her fur coat over a chair. ‘Hector insisted we furnish it in Regency. He’s so hidebound. When we’ve got rid of him I’m going to strip it bare and start again. I want white walls and huge abstract paintings. Do you like Ben Nicholson?’
Rose missed the question. The skin at the back of her neck felt as if something had crawled across it.
‘The painter, darling.’
Her legs started to shake. If she wasn’t to make a complete idiot of herself she had to stay upright and mouth some words that would keep Antonia talking about the house. ‘Who did you say?’
‘Ben Nicholson.’
‘He’s a painter, is he? I can’t say I’ve heard of him.’
Antonia reached around Rose’s shoulder and gently helped her off with her coat. ‘Sweetie, you should never admit such ignorance. What you should say is, Nicholson’s all right, but I prefer Stanley Spencer or Paul Nash or – who do you prefer?’
Rose’s thoughts were still in turmoil. Name an artist. Any artist. She couldn’t. ‘I don’t know anything about modern art.’
‘Christ Almighty. Then you should definitely meet Hector. He thinks Picasso is something Italians eat. Make yourself at home in the sitting room – second door – and I’ll see if he’s in yet. He was supposed to be having lunch with a French professor. Ten to one he’s sleeping it off.’
‘Antonia, don’t disturb him on my account. I’m sure there’ll be another opportunity.’
There was a pause.
‘The opportunity is now, my flower. It’s got to be faced.’
She grasped Antonia’s arm. ‘Just a moment. I’d like to get this clear if you don’t mind. What exactly has got to be faced?’
Antonia made light of it. ‘Did I make him sound like an ogre? Don’t worry – he’s the one who should look out.’
Rose didn’t pursue the question. Mentally she was reeling. She stepped into the room Antonia had indicated. It was as large as her own kitchen, sitting room and passage knocked into one. The dominant colours were blue and white. A tall clock startled her by chiming the quarter-hour. The date 1765 was painted on it in gold. Sets of china and silver were ranged about the walls in display cabinets. Waist-high Chinese vases that she took to be Ming stood on either side of the fireplace, where a white Persian cat was staring at the flames. It raised itself, arched, yawned and came to rub its head against her legs.
She stooped to run her fingers through the fur
, wanting urgently to find some way of calming her nerves. She tried marshalling the few facts she’d learned about Hector: the meeting with Antonia on the steps of the air-raid shelter; his civilian status in the war; the death by drowning of his wife, whose name Rose had forgotten. To which could be added his ignorance of modern art and his lunch today with a French professor. And the evidence all around Rose that she had never been so close to real wealth.
Antonia pushed open the door. ‘Just as I thought. He says he wants black coffee. How about you?’
‘Coffee would be nice. Can I help?’
‘No, I want to show off. We had a couple of servants until two weeks ago, a married couple, Irish. They took exception to something I said and walked out in a huff. Getting replacements is the very devil. However, I’ve learned how to make coffee, so I don’t miss a chance to impress visitors. You can come and see the kitchen if you like.’
Rose stopped in the kitchen doorway and put her hands to her face. ‘Oh, Antonia!’
‘What’s that? My fridge?’
It stood on stilts, a humming white cabinet of monumental size with a door like the front of a bank vault that Antonia needed two hands to unfasten and swing open. Rose gasped in awe at the intricate arrangement of shelves and trays inside, the Perspex storage boxes, the ice compartment and the place for bottles. For the moment her terrors were suspended.
‘You like?’
She gave a start. Her nerves were in no state for surprises. Possibly the small man at her shoulder – who could be no one else but Hector – hadn’t meant to startle her. He was so short that he’d slipped under her protective radar. She looked into a fleshy, smiling face framed in unruly reddish hair. Alert, brown intelligent eyes. Small, even teeth. A quite low-pitched voice with a strange intonation.
‘You can order one from me. In production next year.’
Antonia slammed the fridge door. ‘For Christ’s sake, Hector, she lives in a matchbox. Rosie, this impetuous little man is my husband.’
Hector was unperturbed. Whether or not he understood, he treated her remark as a recommendation. ‘Yes, I take orders now. Quality vacuum cleaners and fridges. Take the work out of housework. The only thing you hear from GEC, Prestcold, any of those companies is, fridges are on the way, worth waiting for, coming soon. Me, I take orders. How often do you wash your clothes? Soon I have a washing machine on the market better than anything in America. How do you do?’
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