Serious Intent

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she suggested. ‘Milk? Or orange juice?’ She could not send him off abruptly and she must decide how to deal with him. In his own eyes, he had not transgressed.

  ‘Orange juice, please,’ he said promptly.

  ‘Take off your jacket,’ Miss Darwin instructed. ‘Hang it in the cloakroom. Then come into the kitchen. I’m sure you know your way around this house.’ Better than I do, she reflected. Perhaps he had already helped himself from her stores, she thought, but saw at once that he had touched nothing. She took a carton of juice – she always had it for breakfast – from the fridge and poured some into a glass, then found a packet of chocolate biscuits. ‘Would you like one of these?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Mark, and added, ‘Thanks.’

  He’d stood his ground, Miss Darwin recollected, when the two motorists had been so angry. Terry had been about to flee, but Mark had denied their responsibility for what had happened.

  ‘Terry will be expecting you. Perhaps you should ring him up and say you’ve been delayed,’ she proposed.

  ‘No – it’s all right,’ Mark assured her. ‘I only said I might come round. It wasn’t definite.’

  ‘I see.’ Miss Darwin did not think another hunt for a missing boy who had not really disappeared would be desirable. ‘Very well. Come and sit down and tell me about the books you’ve read.’

  She had arranged three chocolate biscuits on a plate, which she put, with the juice, on a tray, just like at Mum’s hotel, thought Mark admiringly, used to drinking out of cans and tearing open packs of crisps; then she led the way to the sitting-room. Mark ate his biscuits very fast and neatly, careful not to drop crumbs on the floor, though some landed on the front of his grey school sweater. He noticed them and spiked them with a damp finger, then conveyed them to his mouth. He looked quite composed, setting his glass back on the tray which Miss Darwin had put on a coffee table in front of him.

  ‘Where’s your dog?’ he asked her.

  While he was drinking his juice and eating his biscuits, Miss Darwin had poured herself a stiff whisky, adding soda water. Bottles and glasses were in a cupboard built into a corner of the room. Tom had kept tapes and videos in there, and the games.

  ‘He’s at the vet’s,’ said Miss Darwin. ‘He’s not at all well, I’m afraid. He’s probably got to have an operation. He’ll be there a day or two.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mark. ‘That’s sad. But he’ll get better,’ he assured her, bracingly.

  Miss Darwin knew that this was far from certain.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  ‘When he is, I could come and see him,’ Mark offered. ‘I could take him for walks for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Darwin, taken aback but touched.

  ‘I miss coming here,’ Mark confided. ‘It was so sad about Tom, but he looked quite peaceful.’

  ‘You saw him?’ Miss Darwin was astonished.

  ‘Yes. Steve and me came in as usual, and he was in his chair, not moving, like asleep,’ said Mark. He blinked, and Marigold, in some strange, visceral manner, knew that he had suffered a big loss and was grieving.

  ‘And you’ve been coming in since then.’ It was a statement.

  ‘Not many times,’ said Mark. ‘But it’s nice here. It still is,’ he added politely.

  ‘Do your parents know you come here?’

  ‘There’s only my mum. I haven’t got a dad. I never have had one, not like Steve. His died, as I said,’ Mark answered. ‘Mum works at The Golden Accord. That’s why I go to Ivy’s.’

  Miss Darwin had not heard of The Golden Accord. She imagined a pub, with his mother a barmaid.

  ‘And where do you live?’ she pursued.

  ‘In Grasmere Street,’ he said. ‘Ivy’s house isn’t far from there. I see myself home at night now.’

  ‘As you’ve changed your mind about going to see Terry, perhaps you should be thinking about doing that soon,’ said Miss Darwin, though she was reluctant to part with her unusual guest.

  ‘I needn’t go yet,’ said Mark, expansively. Tom had enjoyed his visits; this old lady might, too. But she wasn’t a bit like a gran, he thought: not at all cuddly and spoiling, as they were meant to be. Some of his friends had them, but Mark rarely met one. ‘Can you play cards?’ he asked.

  Miss Darwin had neither cards nor a chess set, nor anything Mark thought might provide her with a pastime. She was about to question him about his tastes in literature when he asked her about her activities in the dining-room.

  ‘I saw you’d got some paste and stuff in there,’ he said. ‘What’s it for?’

  She showed him, and he was impressed, unstintingly admiring the small boxes she was decorating. She showed him how she grouped the neatly cut-out flowers, and explained that they needed several coats of varnish to harden it all off.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said, then, graciously, he took his leave.

  She watched him go down the drive into the darkness. The nearest street lamp was twenty yards away. She thought he turned to wave to her before he vanished, and, not certain, she waved back.

  She must have security lights put up, she decided: one at the front and another at the back. If he could get in so easily, so could a thief, who would not need a key.

  He hadn’t given his back to her. He could still get in. Did it matter? Perhaps she ought to change the locks. She’d think about it in the morning.

  Marigold poured herself another drink; soon a warm glow of fleeting pleasure filled her, until her thoughts returned to Sinbad. She forgot about the key.

  16

  Sinbad did not recover from his operation. Marigold missed him and understood that by growing fond of him, she had become vulnerable in a manner she had not permitted herself for years. She would not get another dog; at least, not yet.

  Without him, she was freer. She could go to London for the day; to leave him for so long would have been impossible. She made several expeditions, enjoying them, though drenched one night when she returned in pouring rain. Surely this was the wettest winter for very many years, she thought, plodding flat-footedly towards home. Haverscot station was on the very limits of the town; its booking office closed around midday and there were no taxis on the spot – to get one, you must telephone. She should pursue her plan of buying a car and refreshing her ability to drive. There had been a car in Mr Morton’s garage, a well-kept Ford Escort; he hadn’t been able to drive it since his illness, she’d been told. Like all his other possessions, it was sold.

  She’d need something small, just a little box on wheels to get about in. With one, she could visit stately homes and study famous gardens. It must be in good condition, so that it would not let her down.

  She went to the Fabergé exhibition and to several matinées, anonymous, a muted figure in the audience, responding to the drama in a manner she had not enjoyed before. The audience was the fourth wall of a room, peering in. She had peered briefly through the fourth wall of life at Merrifields, she thought one night when she noticed Richard Gardner sitting further down the coach on her returning train. He was reading, and did not notice her until they climbed the steps to cross the bridge at Haverscot station. She wondered what his book was, to insulate him from the journey so successfully.

  When he recognised her, he offered her a lift home and, gratefully, she accepted. She told him not to take her to the door; she would soon walk the short distance from Merrifields to her own house. However, he insisted.

  ‘It’s a foul night. You’ll get soaked,’ he said. She would have, if he hadn’t come along. He’d seen the thin young woman, too, striding off, umbrella raised, wearing boots today. She looked a bit like Verity had done when he first met her: pale and anxious.

  Miss Darwin, though, was very different, and a safer case to transport in his car. She told him she had seen him in the train, intently reading, and he said that he was catching up with Trollope. She’d read none of the novels.

  ‘I go more for biograph
ies and travel,’ she confessed.

  ‘I was never one for the classics,’ Richard answered. ‘But I like the gentle pace of these. People behave very badly but on the whole everyone’s so civil.’

  He turned in at the gateway of The Willows, drawing up outside her door. She had turned the porch light on before she left that morning, but no light showed.

  ‘Oh dear – the bulb must have gone,’ she said. ‘I knew it would be dark when I got home, so I left it burning.’

  ‘Have you got a spare? Let me change it for you,’ Richard offered.

  ‘Oh – that’s very kind of you,’ said Marigold, who would have needed to perch on steps to reach the socket. ‘Yes. I know I’ve got some bulbs.’

  While he changed it, she told him she intended to have security lights fitted, and he suggested an electrician she could use.

  When the job was done, she offered him a drink, thinking he must be eager to get home and would certainly refuse, but he accepted a large whisky. She poured another for herself.

  ‘I’m almost home. No breathalysing bobby will be waiting in the road,’ he said, and sank back in a big armchair while Marigold lit the fire. ‘Gas – how wonderful,’ he said. ‘No work or ashes.’

  ‘It was already here. It’s very convenient,’ she said. ‘But you don’t get mysterious shapes and patterns in it, like you do with ordinary coal or logs.’

  For someone who professed not to read fiction, this was an illuminating comment; she would enjoy it, if she tried it, Richard thought.

  He had gulped down a large amount of his drink almost as soon as they were seated, facing one another. Marigold saw, with concern, that he looked dreadful. He was very pale, with dark patches underneath his eyes.

  ‘I needed that,’ he said, indicating his glass. ‘Thanks.’

  She remembered her sight of him in the bar at The Red Lion. Drink, she had learned, could alleviate despair, could bring a sense of ease and even joy. Until lately, she had never let herself experience this; only now, in her retirement, where there was no witness, had she discovered this pleasure, one which could be easily abused.

  ‘A hard day?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  She waited in case he wanted to enlarge on this, but instead he seemed to give himself a shake and began talking about the choral society. He knew when it would meet again and said that he would take her.

  He couldn’t really want to do that, she reflected, looking at him, a middle-aged man, perhaps attractive – she did not really know about that – though, tonight, his face looked ravaged. Something terrible must have happened; perhaps his wife was leaving him, though would that be so awful, since their relationship was clearly, even to a stranger and one not well versed in such matters like herself, far from easy? Perhaps he was simply lonely.

  So was she. Marigold had been lonely all her life but she had never admitted it to herself before. She rose, refilled his glass and her own, and went out to the kitchen, returning with some crisps in a small dish. She had bought them in case that boy, Mark, called again. Children lived on crisps, she had heard.

  ‘A little blotting-paper,’ she suggested. Her father used to use that phrase. ‘For us both,’ she added, offering them.

  While she was out of the room, Richard’s thoughts had left the present, returning to his interview with Caroline that lunchtime. She had asked him to meet her at an Italian restaurant they had been to before. She was looking very well, he saw; there was a glow about her and she was fuller in the face.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she had said.

  She was getting married: that was what it was, he felt certain, and he prepared himself to hear the news.

  She insisted that they order their meal before she told him anything, then asked about Verity and the boys, trying, he bristlingly decided, to remind him of his own responsibilities before mentioning her plans. It was not until they were drinking their coffee that she made her announcement and then he was, literally, dumbfounded; he could not speak for quite two minutes, simply sitting there, incredulous.

  ‘I want to tell you before it’s all round the office,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant. I’m not sure if you’re the father, or another man I’ve been seeing for some time. He lives down in Wiltshire. He’s married, too: a former boyfriend.’ She’d paused to sip some of the house red wine, a Bardolino. He’d noticed that she drank very little of it, asking for some Perrier. ‘I decided I wanted a child before it was too late. I don’t want a husband, though,’ she added. ‘I was meeting the other man – let’s call him X – from time to time, with this in mind, but nothing happened. He’d got some children, so I felt sure that he was fertile. Anyway, I decided to try someone else.’ She was looking at him all the time she was talking, and Richard was staring at her, aghast.

  ‘Me,’ he managed to croak.

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled at him, a maternal smile, he recognised, with horror. ‘I’m so fond of you. You’re a nice man, and bright. Suitable,’ she said. ‘That makes it sound so cold and calculating, but we had some happy times together, didn’t we?’

  They had. He could not deny it, but it had been false, simply for a purpose: to acquire his acceptable genes.

  ‘I don’t know which of you is, in fact, the father,’ she repeated, smiling still, a Judas smile. He had never heard of anything so cold-blooded. ‘I don’t want any money or support. I can take care of my own child.’ She smiled again. ‘A test could prove paternity, but who wants that? It’s better to leave it vague, don’t you think?’

  ‘Are you going to tell this X?’ Richard asked at last.

  ‘Not specifically. We have mutual friends. He’ll hear like that,’ she said. ‘Just as you would have, in the office, but I didn’t want you to be alarmed.’

  Richard was profoundly shocked. That was his chief emotion. His sperm had been hijacked. He’d been robbed.

  ‘Won’t this child need a father?’ he managed to enquire.

  ‘Oh no. There’ll be men around. My brother, and my father’s very fit. He’ll have grandparents for quite a while, I hope,’ Caroline said calmly. ‘I’ll get a really good nanny and send him or her to a first-class school.’

  She could afford it. He knew that. The child would be well cared for, was wanted, and would probably be loved.

  ‘Will it thank you for giving it no father and no siblings?’

  ‘It might have siblings,’ Caroline replied. ‘There’s time.’

  ‘You’ll have to find another sire, then. I’m not going to be used like this again,’ said Richard. ‘Maybe X will oblige, or you’ll find someone else to play this game with. A younger man, perhaps.’

  ‘Don’t be bitter, Richard,’ Caroline reproved him. ‘It’s not like you. Remember, I needn’t have told you anything.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose not.’

  He finished his coffee, then, before she could do so – it had, after all, been her invitation – he secured the bill and paid it, tipping lavishly.

  ‘I’ve upset you,’ Caroline observed. She looked surprised. ‘I thought you might feel flattered that I chose you.’

  Richard managed not to say that she had exploited him; somehow, he succeeded in leaving the restaurant without losing his temper or his outward poise. He had a wretched afternoon, accomplishing almost nothing in his office, and, in the train, had found it impossible to concentrate upon his book, reading the same page over and over again, not absorbing anything.

  People were going mad, he thought: young girls in poor areas got pregnant in order to obtain a flat and so leave home, or more practically, to have someone to love and to love them – a living doll. What emotional demands did single mothers make upon such children? When they turned from toddlers into ten-year-olds, some went out of control. Caroline would have expectations from her child: love and loyalty, maybe to excess.

  Young Mark Conway’s mother was alone. What was her story? She might be a widow. Whatever her situation, she was making a success of
the boy, and she seemed pleasant. He suspected Mark’s conception was not the result of feckless conduct.

  Sitting in front of Marigold’s gas fire, staring at the flames which, as she had said, made no new patterns, simply repeating their own formula, he felt an impulse to tell her what Caroline had done, but he refrained. She would not want to hear it, and anyway, what could she do? She might not even understand.

  But she had news for him.

  ‘I had a visitor a little while ago,’ she said. ‘Young Mark Conway, Terry’s friend.’ She did not say that he had entered the house uninvited. ‘He came to return a book he’d borrowed from Mr Morton, the previous owner of this house.’

  ‘Oh yes? What was the book?’

  ‘A good one. Coot Club,’ said Marigold. ‘Arthur Ransome. I loved those books when I was young. Mr Morton had the whole set, it seems, and dozens of other children’s books. Mark had been visiting him and borrowing them.’

  Richard hid a smile. Here was someone who eschewed fiction, yet she had read it in her youth.

  ‘What happened to them? The books, I mean,’ asked Richard.

  ‘They were sold, with all his other things,’ said Marigold. ‘If I’d known about the boy, perhaps I could have bought the children’s books.’

  ‘I wish Justin and Terry read Arthur Ransome,’ Richard said. ‘They barely read at all, and when they do, it’s horror stories.’

  ‘Did you know Mr Morton?’

  ‘Not really. By sight, before he had his stroke. We said good morning, that kind of thing,’ said Richard. ‘He went to pieces after his wife died.’

  They went on talking about Mr Morton and his sad decline, and the pathos of selling someone’s possessions after their death, then moved to Marigold’s plans for the garden.

  Richard left at last, feeling much calmer, but Marigold knew that inside, he was screaming with pain.

  She poured herself another drink, and after a while she put a disc on her new music system. Soon she forgot Richard, and even Sinbad faded from her mind.