Something Stupid

by Victoria Corby

  It turned out he couldn’t. When I rang him, full of my news, he congratulated me and said, ‘There’s just one problem. There’s a bloke parked outside in a Ford Escort. He’s been there a couple of hours now, apparently having a kip in the front seat of his car, just like the guy in the Peugeot 205 who was in that space before him - except that he woke up in time to decide to have a pint and a sandwich in the same pub as I did. Either Stefano’s put the rozzers on me and they’re keeping watch to see where I’ve stashed the loot, or he’s got private detectives following me to see if I can lead them to Cressida.’

  ‘Oh, dammit to hell!’ I said loudly, causing Darian to give me a dirty look as she swept through the office. ‘Bloody Stefano. Why can’t he keep his sodding word?’ At Darian’s second glare I lowered my voice. ‘He swore he’d leave you alone and now look what he’s doing. I thought I’d convinced him you had nothing to do with this.’

  ‘Obviously changed his mind overnight,’ said James dryly. ‘If Cressy won’t come to the phone someone will have to go down to Folkestone to speak to her. It can’t be me.’

  ‘Let it be Stefano then,’ I said in irritation. ‘If her seminar was that successful she’ll easily be able to stand up to him.’

  There was a long silence. I could almost feel the waves of reproach washing down the telephone wires and out through the receiver. ‘You know you don’t mean that,’ said James reprovingly. ‘Whatever happened to female solidarity? Besides you made a promise to Arabella.’

  There was another silence. I broke it first. ‘James, I can’t go to Folkestone,’ I wailed. ‘I’m going to France tomorrow morning and I’ve got loads to finish here. I haven’t even packed. I don’t have the time to get to Folkestone and back.’

  I might have known I wouldn’t be allowed to get away with that. There was a pause then he said brightly, ‘You’re going on Eurostar, aren’t you? You could go to Folkestone first thing in the morning, see Cressy, and then catch the train from Ashford. You’ll still be in Paris by lunchtime if you get cracking early enough.’

  He made it all sound so easy. Apart from the matter of having to get up at five in the morning and driving for about three hours in my elderly Renault 5 with its dicky heater and broken radio, without any guarantee that Cressida hadn’t left instructions to turn away personal visitors as well as telephone calls, and then finding the station in Ashford, changing my ticket and no doubt paying for it as well, there weren’t too many objections I could make, though I tried. Believe me, I tried. I asked why Harry couldn’t go. Surely this was a fraternal duty? Harry and Cressida didn’t get on, according to James. We couldn’t involve any of her family as I’d made a promise and I didn’t break my word, did I? I was beginning to think I could, quite easily. I even offered to come along to the shop with a wig, a large raincoat and a pair of size 10 stilettos so he could sneak out in disguise and go to Folkestone himself. James was quite taken with this idea but decided he would never live it down if he were stopped by the police in rather amateur drag. Eventually, as he knew I would, I heard myself weakly agreeing that, yes, I would get up at the crack of dawn, or before dawn to be accurate, and go and try to persuade Cressida to do the right thing. I had a feeling, even then, that I was going to regret it.

  The only good thing I can say for my car’s heater, or lack of it, is that the frigid cold did at least help to keep me awake after about three hours’ sleep, and the pain from the chilblains developing on my fingers and toes effectively took my mind off the slight hangover niggling away behind my eyes. James had employed himself usefully by ringing the hotel and asking for directions as to how to get there and had said he’d drop by the flat with the details. And it wouldn’t do any harm if his tail reported he’d gone around to visit me either. He turned up with wine and a takeaway for which I was most grateful at the time – I think it’s the first occasion any member of the male species has arrived with food that I wasn’t expected to ‘do something’ with, but for which I found myself cursing him now. Actually I was cursing him for getting me involved in this at all, and myself too. If I’d been a bit stronger minded I’d never have given in to him - on several occasions - and right now I’d be at Waterloo buying a magazine to read on the train instead of sitting in the car trying to make head or tail of his map. It had seemed so simple last night when he explained it to me, but map reading has never been one of my strengths.

  At least I could identify one thing on the map - the squiggly line with ‘sea’ written on it. The real thing lay to my right, reflecting the grey and sullen sky, with the odd ship dotted around on it, looking thoroughly unprepos­sessing. There was a grassy expanse which stretched along the cliff top almost as far as the eye could see and which was bordered by large Victorian and Edwardian hotels with fine sea views, which must be the oblong marked ‘The Leas’ on the map. In better weather you would have expected dog walkers, strollers heading for the pretty bandstand further along, the odd attendant pushing a wheelchair, but right now with a chill wind blowing the sparse winter grass almost flat it was com­pletely deserted. Even those of the hotels which had escaped being converted into apartments looked as if they had been closed for the off-season. But none of the spider tracks on the piece of paper in my hand bore any resem­blance to the roads I could see around me. At last I found the hotel. I had been, justifiably I think, misled by the name, ‘Bosun’s View’. It hadn’t occurred to me that having spent most of his life afloat the bosun would make sure he never had to look out of his window and see bloody water again. I imagine whoever had been giving the instructions to James hadn’t been keen to stress this point either. It depends if you think that ‘a short walk’ from the sea is about a mile.

  I was prepared for enormous difficulties in getting to Cressida, having to stand my ground and insist on seeing her in the face of denials that she was there at all, threatening to chain myself to the railings, etc, but to my surprise the angular woman who answered the bell at the desk in the dark little reception area simply sniffed and said she dare say Mrs Buonotti would be coming down soon. She’d have to or she’d miss breakfast because the dining room was closing in five minutes, she added, thin lips snapping with satisfaction. I could wait over there, she indicated, waving at a cretonne-covered sofa in one corner, and if I’d excuse her she’d have to get on, she had a lot of work to do, low season or no low season.

  I sat down and occupied myself with reading last summer’s timetable for the Hythe-Dymchurch miniature railway. It looked quite fun, the sort of thing Imogen’s two boys who are still at prep school would like. There was a slightly more up-to-date programme for the local theatre group. I’d just finished reading the cast list for the Christmas pantomime when I heard footsteps on the steps and Cressida appeared. She was dressed in a fine wool polo neck in the pale grey she seemed to like so much, tucked into the enviably narrow waistband of a pair of designer jeans. She was looking tired and strained, her eyes even huger than usual in her pale face, shadows like camouflage stripes underneath them. I stood up. ‘Hello, Cressida,’ I said.

  She wheeled around with a squeak of alarm, hand pressed to her mouth. She was so white I thought she was about to faint and leaped forward to take her arm to support her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you like that,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s all right, Stefano isn’t here.’

  To my relief the colour began to return to her face. ‘It was the surprise,’ she whispered, and smiled at me tremulously. ‘It’s nice to see you, Laura. Come and sit with me while I have my breakfast. I’m sure we can persuade Mrs Jessop to make you some coffee.’ She dropped her voice, ‘Even if she is a miserable old witch.’

  The dining room had last been decorated circa 1967 with an embossed design of gold, silver and yellow circles and squiggles against a dirty white background. Framed prints of sea views, to make up for what you couldn’t see from here, hung with military precision in the middle of each wall. There was a pervading smell of damp. It wasn’t surprising that in these dismal su
rroundings Cressida had no appetite for anything more than toast and marmalade, though if the cooked breakfast was anything like the coffee that was grudgingly brought to me, ‘It’ll have to go on your bill, Mrs Buonotti, we didn’t agree anything about entertaining guests’, it was probably better for her digestion that she refrained. I wondered idly if she had ever stayed anywhere before where she wasn’t valued as an honoured guest but instead treated as just another blooming tripper, unlikely - with good reason - to return. Her downcast expression didn’t give the impression she was finding this a jolly adventure.

  I wittered on brightly about going to Paris, giving her time to have two triangles of soggy toast and a cup of tea so brown you could have used it for dyeing your clothes, before I launched into the reason why I was there. Perhaps I should have left it longer but I had a train to catch. As it was, despite James’s airy promises, I was going to miss lunch and moules marinière at my mother’s local brasserie. I’d been looking forward to them all week. Maybe I could persuade Mum to go there for tomorrow. I cut ruthlessly into Cressida’s colourless description of the seminar and began to tell her about Stefano’s visit to me. She wasn’t surprised - not even Cressida could imagine I just happened on her hotel by chance. But she was horri­fied about his invading the office. ‘You see why I simply can’t live with him any longer,’ she murmured. ‘That temper. Please don’t even suggest I should go back to him.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ I said promptly. It occurred to me that she looked not so much angry with him as fright­ened, and naturally I made the gigantic leap to a damning conclusion. ‘Has he been beating you up?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Of course not!’ she said indignantly. ‘Stefano would never do that.’

  ‘Thank God!’ I said with a sigh of relief. ‘I swear to you I don’t want you to go back to him if you don’t want to, nor am I going to tell him where you are. All I care about is that he stops getting the wrong end of the stick about James.’

  ‘But I can’t help that,’ she protested.

  I could have given her chapter and verse on how she could help that, starting with comparing her husband unfavourably to her former boyfriend. To his face. With rare tact I didn’t. I did say though, ‘Stefano thinks it was James who persuaded you to take his things.’

  She went rigid. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why, the china of course. Because James told you how much it was worth. He thinks you’re planning to sell it and set yourself up with the proceeds.’

  Cressida laughed shortly. ‘I hadn’t thought of selling it. I suppose it’s not a bad idea. I need some money.’

  ‘Would that be wise?’ What could she need that amount of money for? The diamond necklace that Stefano wouldn’t give her? ‘I mean, he really is very upset about it - you don’t want him publicly accusing you of theft.’

  Her face set like stone. ‘He won’t. I had a perfect right to them,’ she said flatly in a way that indicated she didn’t want to talk about it.

  I decided not to pursue the rights and wrongs of pinching your husband’s favourite things and said, ‘That’s not really important, what’s much more serious is that Stefano thinks you’re having an affair with James. I’ve tried to tell him it’s not true and he doesn’t believe me. You’re going to have to convince him of the truth.’

  ‘I can’t!’ she protested immediately.

  I leaned over the table. ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry, Cressida,’ I said eagerly, ‘he’ll listen to you. He doesn’t really want to believe you’ve gone off with another man. He’d much rather hear you were having dinner with girlfriends and not James at La Cucina on Friday and that—’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to talk to him - I can’t. He’ll find out where I am and make me come back.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she sniffed. I saw with interest that her nose didn’t go red nor her eyes pink like mine do when I’m on the verge of crying. What a very useful talent to have. It must make men go weak at the knees. It left me completely unmoved.

  ‘Nonsense!’ I said bracingly. ‘That’s one of the reasons you’ve done this seminar, so you can stand up to Stefano.’ Right now, judging from her expression, it looked as if she was going to have to be ranked as one of the failures. ‘Please, Cressida,’ I begged, beginning to feel almost as tearful as she looked, but nowhere near as pretty, ‘do it for James’s sake. Stefano said something about how easy it would be to put James in prison - you can’t let that happen to him.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d really do anything like that,’ she said doubtfully, in a way that suggested she was fairly sure that he might. ‘No, I can’t let him,’ she went on in a stronger voice, beginning to look encouragingly annoyed at the idea. ‘How dare he think he can go throwing his weight around and threatening people?’ she demanded. ‘He thinks he can do whatever he wants, walk over anyone to get what he desires—’

  ‘Men in his position - whose wives have left them - don’t always behave in the most rational and reasonable fashion,’ I felt obliged to point out, not quite sure why I was defending Stefano in any way.

  ‘He deserves to have someone do something like that to him - to see how he likes being treated that way,’ she stated hotly. I felt we were getting off the point here - that she needed to talk to him herself - and said so. She nodded reluctantly. ‘But if I ring him from here he can trace the number on that machine of his. He’d be down in a couple of hours.’

  ‘I could drive you to a telephone box in another town,’ I offered, wondering if I’d make Paris that day at all.

  Cressida looked doubtful. ‘I suppose so.’ Then she brightened and sat up straight. ‘I know! I’ll come with you to Paris and ring Stefano from there!’

  CHAPTER 11

  She bounced up, looking in an instant the lively, vibrant person I’d first met rather than the careworn, worried individual I’d just had breakfast with. ‘He’ll never be able to find me there!’ I didn’t know what to say as she gabbled on. ‘I’ve got my passport with me and I can buy any clothes I need, I want some new things anyway.’

  ‘I thought you’d been shopping with Arabella,’ I said, seeing my weekend with my mother vanishing like smoke.

  ‘But I don’t like them, I only bought them because they’d annoy Stefano,’ Cressida said simply. ‘Besides nobody understands underwear like the French do and I could do with a holiday.’

  I was sure this was going to turn out to be a very bad idea. ‘If Stefano ever finds out you came to Paris with me he’ll believe that I - and by infer­ence James - have been helping you to leave him all along. He’ll be right back on the warpath again.’

  Cressida’s lower lip protruded in a manner recognisable to all owners of sulky four year olds. ‘I can’t risk his tracing me,’ she said obstinately.

  Even if Stefano pos­sessed the technology to trace a telephone call to a certain place immediately he wouldn’t be able to get from London to south Kent in the matter of minutes it would take for her to get in a car and drive away but I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t be any use saying so. That pretty face was looking uncommonly stubborn. She must either adore Paris or be extremely bored here. I suspected the latter. Well, I was also staying with Mum next weekend as I returned from the Freddie French do, so I would get a chance to see her properly then at least. ‘What about the seminar?’ I asked in a last ditch attempt to dissuade her from this crazy scheme. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be helping at one of the weekend affairs?’

  She grinned. ‘What’s the point of doing a seminar on self-assertion if you don’t feel you can pull out if you want to?’

  Which was how, three hours later, Cressida was sitting next to me as we passed under the Channel only a couple of miles away from where she had been having breakfast. Once she’d made up her mind she was certainly a fast mover. She had herself packed, bill paid, overriding Mrs Jessop’s protest that she didn’t like taking cheques, especially off people with foreign names, and ready to go around to Sam to t
ell him she wasn’t going to be present that evening in under twenty minutes. Lifesigns must have been a profitable little enterprise for Sam lived in a seriously large Victorian villa set in what looked like acres of garden on the edge of town. Cressida shot up the path carrying two bulging carrier bags and came back less than five minutes later, saying breathlessly, ‘Just returning some things he lent me and giving him a couple of things I don’t want to lug all the way to Paris, to console him for my dropping out. He wasn’t very pleased,’ she added morosely. ‘Said I had been so recep­tive to the messages of Lifesigns that he’d been thinking of giving me a job, but of course if I was going to be unreliable...’

  My little car chugged out into the traffic. I glanced over at Cressida as she carefully buffed already perfect nails. ‘I think it’s brilliant to have someone even considering giving you a job this soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if you’re really determined not to go back to Stefano you’ll have to get a job of some kind, won’t you?’

  ‘Will I?’ she queried as if the notion had never occurred to her before. It probably hadn’t. She looked distinctly put out. She put a perfect fingernail in her mouth and nibbled on it absently, forehead creased in thought. ‘I don’t know what I’ll be able to do. I’m not very good at working.’

  I let her ponder on that while I looked for the signs to Ashford. I had an idea it wouldn’t do Cressida any harm to think about what life in the real world was going to be like.