Vengeance q-5

by Benjamin Black

  Maggie might have laughed at that-the idea of her father letting anyone wheel him anywhere! She waited patiently, standing back a little, then proffered the cup again. “Take your tea,” she said.

  He let her put the cup and saucer into his hands. She was afraid he would spill the tea, scald himself perhaps, but one of the things the doctors had told her was that he must be allowed to fend for himself as much as possible. He set the saucer in his lap, the cup clattering. He did not drink; he was glaring into the garden.

  “Are you sure you didn’t take your pill?” Maggie said.

  He turned his head and looked at her with furious contempt. “What was the good Lord thinking,” he said, “to take my only son from me and leave me you?”

  He watched her, almost smiling, eager to see the barb strike home. Maggie was thinking how remarkable it was that his accent had never softened, though he had lived down here in the Republic for half a century. It was another of the things he clung to, unrelenting, that Northern growl. “Drink your tea,” she said again, mildly.

  She brought a chair and sat down by the trolley and poured a cup of tea for herself. They both turned their eyes now to the garden. How strange to see everything in bloom and the sun shining so gloriously. But then, why was it strange? Death did not come only in times of dark and cold. It must have been beautiful, out in the bay, when Victor turned the gun against himself and fired. What would have been going through his mind, what terrors, what memories? She felt tears welling in her eyes but held them back by force of will. Her father was furious that he had let her see him weeping; she would not allow him to have redress by weeping herself, now.

  “I was watching the birds,” the old man said. “Thrushes, blackbirds. There’s a robin, too, that comes and goes. Fierce creature, the robin-did you know that? Courage a hundred times his size. Aye, he holds on, that bird, doesn’t weaken and let go.” He made a fist of his left hand and brought it down with a thump on the arm of the wheelchair, making the cup in his lap joggle and slopping the tea.

  It occurred to Maggie that what pained her father most about his son’s death was the shame of it, the disgrace. Or was she being unfair? He was as capable of grief as she was. She speculated as to whether he might know what had driven Victor to do what he had done. Should she ask him? Surely a time such as this should permit them to speak as otherwise they never would? She glanced at her father, his carved profile, his poet’s shock of silver hair. She knew nothing about him, next to nothing. He had never bothered with her; a daughter was nothing to him. And now he had no son. How would he not be furious? And heartbroken, perhaps; perhaps that, too.

  Jonas came in. Automatically she looked to the door to see James entering behind him, as always. But Jonas was alone. This was so unusual that she gave him a questioning look, which he ignored. “Any tea in that pot?” he asked.

  Maggie laid her hand against the teapot’s cheek. “It’s gone cold. Sarah can bring a fresh pot.”

  Jonas shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s too hot to drink tea anyway.” He threw himself down in an armchair. He had changed out of the black suit he had put on for the funeral, and wore dark slacks and a white silk shirt and loafers with no socks. His slender ankles were tanned. He had not wept at the graveside either. The suspicion came to Maggie sometimes that she allowed herself to feel things far too deeply. Her brother’s death had set going in her a rushing underground river of grief that would in time slow down but that would be there always, running under everything. There were other streams from the past that were still flowing. Billy Thompson, a boy she had been sweet on when she was young-he had died, and she mourned him yet, all these years later. She looked at Jonas draped there in the armchair, a dazzling creature, so seemingly at ease. Surely he too was grieving for his father, in his own, subterranean fashion.

  “How are you feeling, Grandad?” he asked.

  The old man lifted a hand and let it fall again limply in a gesture of weary dismissal. “I’m no better than the rest of us,” he said, still eyeing the garden, his jaw working.

  Jonas turned to Maggie. “And what about you, Auntie?” he inquired, jaunty and ironical. He addressed his aunt always in a tone of half-fond raillery. He seemed, she thought without rancor, to find her something of a joke. But then, she supposed she was a joke-the spinster sister living in the home she had always lived in, despised by her father, mocked by her nephews, abandoned now by her beloved brother; even Sarah the maid paid her no regard. Yes, she should retire to Ashgrove, live there alone, keep cats, and become the local eccentric. “By the way,” Jonas said, in an undertone, “you and I need to have a talk.”

  “Yes? What about?”

  He frowned, and glanced in the direction of his grandfather. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Mona too had changed out of black, into a silk dress of dark sapphire that set off her milky pallor and the rich bronze textures of her hair. When she entered the drawing room she paused in the doorway, seeing the three of them-Maggie, her father-in-law, one of the twins-in their separate places at the far end of the big bright room, posed there like actors awaiting the entrance of the leading lady.

  She came forward, stopping at the sideboard to take a cigarette from the box and light it with the fat heavy lighter. She was conscious of the three of them watching her. She was accustomed to being the center of attention, but this was different. Becoming a widow had given her a new role. It was a curiously pleasant, light-headed feeling. A widow, at her age! It seemed absurd, like something in a stage musical. The merry widow. She was still herself, of course, and yet she was someone else at the same time, the Mona Vanderweert she had always been and now Mrs. Victor Delahaye, whose husband was dead. It made her feel-well, it made her feel grown-up, in a way she had not felt before.

  “Oh,” she said, “am I late for tea?”

  It was not tea she wanted, anyway, but a drink, though she supposed she had better not ask for one. It had been a trying day and did not seem set to get any easier. Everything felt flat. She would have liked the mourners to come back to the house after the funeral but her father-in-law had not wanted it. It would have been interesting to stand here being sad but brave among all those people.

  Maggie had risen from her chair by the tea trolley. “How are you, my dear?” she asked. As if she cared, Mona thought.

  “I’m fine, thank you. I seem to be a bit-dizzy.” Her sister-in-law stood before her with her hands clasped under her bosom, what there was of it, gazing at her with a forlorn expression. All at once she had a vision of time stretching before her like a tunnel, or no, like an avenue in a cemetery, lined with dark trees, and a person standing mournfully under each tree, looking at her in just this way. A silent scream formed inside her. Boredom was one of her acutest fears. “Really,” she said, turning away, “I’m fine.”

  None of them liked her. She had taken their precious Victor away from them, which was bad enough, but now they seemed to think she was somehow responsible for his death. They would not say so, of course, but she could feel them thinking it. She looked at the twin-was it James? for she was never quite sure which of them was which, even after all this time-and wondered what he knew. Both twins had been very cold towards her at the funeral, not that they were ever exactly warm where she was concerned. She would have to be careful. She supposed she had been foolish, had taken a foolish risk. Had Victor done it just because…? No: she would not let herself think that, she would not, it was too absurd.

  She turned to the young man in the armchair. “Where’s Jonas?” she asked.

  He sighed, and his mouth tightened. “I’m Jonas.” He held up his left hand and showed her the ring on his little finger. “Jonas is the one who wears this, remember?”

  She laughed, and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, sorry, yes, I didn’t look.” His angry sarcasm amused her. Did they really expect her to check their little fingers every time she met them? It was not her fault that he and his brother were a pair of freaks. “Sorry,” she sai
d again, and looked around for an ashtray.

  Samuel Delahaye sat slumped in the wheelchair with his chin sunk on his breast, glowering out into the garden. Mona went and stood beside him. He was the only one of them she had any time for. She had tried to get him to like her, and believed she had been successful, though of course he would never let on. He was such a grouch, shouting at everyone, insulting everyone. Often, when he was in one of his rages, she had an awful urge to laugh, but knew that if she did he would probably come rearing up out of that chair and slap her face. It would be interesting, to be hit like that. Old Sam was still handsome, and rather cruel-looking, like his grandsons only not weak like them; when he smiled, if what he did could be called a smile, he bared his lower teeth, just as Victor used to do.

  Suddenly, at the thought of Victor, she felt sad. It was hard to grasp that he was actually gone, that he was in that wooden box, in the ground, already beginning to rot. She shivered. She had liked Victor. He had been handsome too, more handsome than his father, in fact, but in a different way: softer around the edges, she thought. Yes, that was it, softer around the edges.

  He had known nothing about her, she knew that. She had preferred it that way. Being married to Victor had been like living inside a fine, sound, well-appointed house, a house that was not hers but that gave her shelter and protected her and yet left her free to come and go as she pleased, a little gold key safe in her palm. She recalled his smell, of tobacco and pomade and that special soap he used to wash his hands with-the skin of his hands was sensitive and chapped easily. She tried now to see those hands in her mind, and was slightly shocked to realize that she could not. Had she ever really looked at them? Had she ever paid genuine attention to her husband? These were not questions that troubled her, but it was odd to find herself asking them. She was always careful how she positioned herself in front of things, looking, and being looked at. Sometimes she thought of herself as a separate object, a figure outside herself that she could regard from a distance, appraising, approving, admiring.

  Victor had thought she loved him. It would have been unfair to let him think otherwise.

  “Look,” her father-in-law said suddenly, dragging himself up in the wheelchair and pointing beyond the window to the garden with a trembling finger. “Robin Redbreast! Aha, the wee warrior.”

  It was nearly midnight when he left Bella’ s house, after his second visit. It was not two weeks since Victor had died, but it seemed far longer ago than that. Bella stood in the doorway watching him go. When he was turning the corner at the bottom of the road and glanced behind him she was still there, he could see her figure silhouetted in black against the light from the hall. He stopped, and stood looking back at her, hearing himself breathe. Why was she still there? The night was calm and mild, and the soft feel of the air made him think of summer nights in the past, and of himself walking away from some other girl’s door, smelling the dew on the privet and the salt reek of the sea and hearing the birds far out in the bay calling and crying. He had an urge suddenly to hurry back, before Bella closed the door, and make her take him inside again, and lie down with him and hold him in her arms. He did not want to be out here, alone.

  He went on, and turned the corner.

  There was a big moon shining above the bay, it seemed to him a huge gold eye watching him askew. He hoped Sylvia would be asleep, but probably she would not be. She knew he was in trouble, and that the trouble was connected with Victor Delahaye’s death. She had not challenged him, of course, had not made even the mildest inquiry. That was his wife’s way, ever careful, ever discreet.

  He knew he should have told her what was going on, what he was up to, surely he had owed her that. Instead he had kept it all to himself. It was not that he did not trust her, only how could he have told her, what would he have said-how would he have phrased it? Well, you see, dear, the thing is, over the past couple of years I’ve been positioning myself to elbow Victor aside and take over the jolly old firm-what do you think of that? He knew what she would think of it. He knew very well. Would she leave him? She was English, and the English had a funny sense of what was right and proper and what was not. He could say to her it was just business-and what was it except business? — but she would throw that back in his face. Yet what did she expect? Did she think he should be content to spend the rest of his working life with his neck under Victor Delahaye’s boot-no, under the heel of his John Lobb penny loafer with the hand-stitched seams and scalloped tongue?

  Victor Delahaye was what Sylvia would have called an ass: stupid, smug, conceited, and lazy. All his life Victor had coasted in the shelter of the business that both their fathers, Samuel Delahaye and his partner, Phil Clancy, had built up through hard work, shrewdness, and unremitting ruthlessness. Had Victor been in sole control, the thing would have done no more than drift and, who knows, might have foundered, if Jack had not been there to keep a firm grip on the tiller.

  How many dangers had Jack steered them past? There had been that strike the dockers went on after the war, the strike old Samuel thought he could break and that Jack had been left to fix, by paying off the union bosses and cracking the heads of a few hard chaws who would not be brought on board. And what about the time Clem Morrissy and his brothers had tried to set up that rival chain of garages and once again Jack had been called on to send in the muscle and keep the monopoly safe for Delahaye amp; Clancy? Always it was Jack who had done the dirty work, while Victor preened and boasted and played the gentleman. And then-

  And then. Who would have thought Victor would have it in him to go out that way? Who would have thought it would affect him so disastrously, to discover himself sidelined? Who would have thought. There must have been something else; something else must have driven him to put a bullet through his heart, Jack was convinced of it. But what? If he could find out, maybe all was not lost, maybe something of all he had been working for could be saved.

  Should he make one last try? Did he have it in him? He had always been a fighter, unlike Victor, who had everything handed to him on a silver platter. Yes, he would keep on, he would not be done down by that bastard Maverley and Victor’s wastrel sons. That was what would keep him going, the thought of the twins and Maverley using Victor’s death to defeat him. For they would get shot of him entirely if they could-oh, yes, they would. Already Maverley was putting the machinery in place that would grind him up and spit him out on the street. Did he imagine Jack had not seen him, after the funeral, sloping off for a quiet word with that detective, the one with the cow shit still on his boots, and his sidekick in the black suit? Jack could imagine the bookkeeper, with his gray jaw and his brown breath, counting out the insinuations like so many pounds, shillings, and pence, blackening the name of Jack Clancy, accusing him by innuendo and trying to undo by stealth all that he had put in place with such care, such finesse, such inventiveness.

  The front was deserted, and yet, as he walked along, it seemed to him somehow that he was not alone. More than once he stopped, and turned, and peered back along the path beside the sea. Was it a shadow that had slipped behind that bush? He stood, his nerves tingling, and strained to see into the gloom, listening past the washing of small waves against the seafront wall. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard.

  The grass was silver in the moonlight. He walked on, wanting to hasten his steps yet dreading the thought of reaching home. He pictured himself at the front door, easing the key into the lock and wincing at the crunch it made, and then standing in the shadows in the hallway, taking the measure of the house, trying to guess if Sylvia was asleep or if Davy was in, and feeling, too, the lingering damp warmth in his groin. The guilt that he felt was part of the thrill, always had been, although being thrilled by his guilt made him feel guiltier still. Such a tangle his life had always been. But who was it that had made it tangled? Who was there to blame, but himself?

  He came to the house and stopped, and stood with his hands on the coolly clammy top bar of the gate, looking up at
his own bedroom window, where a faint light glowed. Sylvia would be awake, propped up in bed, with her spectacles on the end of her nose, reading, or at her sewing. Since Victor’s death she had been sleeping badly-well, who had not? She would know, of course, or guess what he had been up to tonight. She would not know the details-she was not aware of Bella’s existence, he was confident of that-but she would not need to. He sometimes thought she was glad to be rid of him for so much of the time. She had her own life. He was not a prime requirement in it.

  He lit a cigarette, turning away in case the match flame might be visible from that far window, and then walked aimlessly on, musing on his wife, of whom, if truth were told, he knew so little. He had loved her, once, this cool pale slender distant woman. He had wanted her because she was so different from the women he had known before he knew her, and whom he continued to know, despite being married. And she had loved him-loved him still, probably. Despite everything.

  He passed by the bandstand. It looked eerie, a filigreed iron gazebo standing in the moonlight, silent and brooding.

  Stop. Listen. There was definitely someone behind him.

  He was suddenly hot with fear, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. He dared not turn, but then he did turn. Still there was no one to be seen, yet he knew there was someone, the same someone who had started up after him when he left Bella’s house. “Who’s there?” he called out softly, feeling foolish, his voice unsteady. “Who is it? Show yourself!”

  Silence, with the sense in it of stifled, jeering laughter. He slipped into the bandstand and stood in the webbed shadows there under the wrought-iron canopy. The concrete floor gave off a mingled smell of piss and fag ends. He thought with desperate yearning of how it would have been here earlier, when the mail boat was getting ready to set out, the passengers hurrying and people shouting farewells, the porters bumping luggage up the gangplank and the ship sounding its grave, portentous note. He could have lost himself in all that bustle, could have slipped away, and been safe.