The Saint Zita Society

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Rabia. ‘Are you digging that up to plant flowers?’

  ‘That’s right. Preparing the flower bed. We’ll have some bulbs in there for the spring and then some annuals for the summer.’

  ‘That will be very beautiful.’ Rabia told him about her father who was the manager of a nursery that sold flowers and plants and trees and the man seemed very interested.

  Her walk had taken her to look at the stream and the little wood and a little maze she didn’t go in because you could get lost. The worry that had been with her for months now, whether she should speak out in the matter of Lucy’s immoral, and to Rabia criminal, behaviour, she could put to the back of her mind while she was out in the fresh air and under the trees. She went back to the house, feeling cheerful and ready to think about what to give them all for their dinners.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The weekend passed pleasantly enough for Montserrat, all alone at number 7. She celebrated the departure of the Stills by drinking too much in the Dugong on Saturday night. Walking home was not to be contemplated without assistance. This was given by a rather good-looking man, a newcomer to the Dugong, who she thought – insofar as she was able to think – would leave her at the basement door once she had managed to turn her key in the lock. He had different ideas, came in with her, came into her flat with her and in her bedroom proceeded to undress her without her permission. She was too weak to resist and, once naked, had no wish to resist. He stayed all night, departing at eight in the morning after taking her mobile number. He also took a gold bracelet from Lucy’s jewel box, discovered during the hurried tour he made of the house before leaving.

  This was something Monserrat only discovered a week later, or guessed at a week later, when Lucy couldn’t find the bracelet. Of course she said nothing. The rather good-looking man hadn’t called her, so how was she supposed to know who he was or where he lived? It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell Thea about her experience, blaming her insensible state on his dropping Rohypnol into her drink, but later she was glad she hadn’t mentioned it. She and Thea went out on the Sunday and Monserrat hadn’t felt too bad, enjoying the sunshine on Wimbledon Common and later sharing a bottle of wine in a pizza place.

  The bit of banister seemed more shaky than ever, so, feeling very responsible, she made a notice out of a sheet of cardboard, wrote on it in block capitals, DANGER. DO NOT TOUCH, and hung it on the rail by a piece of string.

  The question of Lucy’s conduct with the wicked man who was a TV actor continued to worry Rabia, but since it had first come to her notice several months ago now, she had set it against her love for Thomas. It was wrong to think this way, but if she told Lucy what she knew, no doubt Lucy would dismiss her, and if she told Mr Still, Lucy would know she had told him and still dismiss her. She would never see Thomas again. Her heart would break. Rabia was no fool and she was well aware that Thomas had taken the place of Assad and Nasreen, her dead children, and that she gave him twice the love she had given to each one of them.

  There was nothing to be done except hope the wicked TV man would tire of Lucy or she of him. Such things happened. Rabia knew this, not from experience but from the kind of TV dramas the wicked man took part in. There were no characters in them like herself or like Beacon who was also possessed of a strong moral sense. She knew this because Montserrat had told her that her own task would be considerably helped if only Beacon would call her when the boss was getting into the Audi in Old Broad Street. That would give her twenty minutes at least to hustle Rad Sothern out of the house before Mr Still walked in the front door. She hadn’t actually asked Beacon but she had given him what she called a ‘hypothetical scenario’ she translated for Rabia as ‘the kind of thing that might happen’. A friend of hers, she had said, was in that particular situation. The driver might have helped her out, didn’t Beacon think? Beacon did not.

  ‘That driver should tell his boss,’ said Beacon, giving Monserrat a nasty suspicious look.

  Rabia made no comment. She was hugging Thomas at the time and Thomas was lovingly kissing her cheek.

  ‘I just have to rely on guesswork,’ said Montserrat.

  Preston Still took a week’s holiday in October and he and Lucy went off to stay in a fashionable hotel on the Cornish coast. The children were left at home with Rabia and Montserrat. Zinnia was also roped in to stay in a room on the nursery floor.

  ‘He’ll sort of miss his kids,’ said Zinnia. ‘She won’t. Don’t know why she had them. Mind you, the only notice he takes of them is to ask if they’re ill.’

  Rabia agreed but said nothing. She rather enjoyed being the most important one of the three left in charge and discovered in herself a talent for organisation. Monserrat was to see to the girls’ tea and make sure they did their little bit of homework while Zinnia attended to their clothes and the laundry. Rabia took Thomas over to the other nursery, the plant one, and rather regretted paying the visit when her father said that Khalid Iqbal was to be found in the tropical house and she should go along and say good afternoon to him.

  ‘No, Father, if Mr Iqbal wishes to speak to me he must come to me. I am going to take Thomas to see the white mice and the ferret.’ For the nursery offered for sale small mammals as well as tropical fish and a multiplicity of plants.

  The mice were even more popular with Thomas than the fish. He put out his hands to their cage, trying to grasp one of them through the bars. Moving his pushchair away, though ever so gently, provoked yells and a storm of tears, so that when Khalid Iqbal approached along the path from the arboretum, Rabia was holding the weeping Thomas close, his wet cheek against her cheek.

  The sight of the woman he hopes to marry lovingly carrying a child adds to the attraction she has for a man. This may specially be true of a man from a culture where children are much prized. Khalid greeted Rabia with a fulsome smile and a request after her health.

  ‘Mr Siddiqui has kindly invited me to take tea with him on Saturday afternoon and said he hoped you too would be there.’

  To herself Rabia said, Oh, has he? We’ll see about that. Aloud, ‘My father should have told me first. Saturday afternoon will be impossible, I am afraid. I am in charge of the household at number 7 until my employers return from holiday.’

  His disappointment was plain. ‘Perhaps another time.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Rabia, putting Thomas back in his pushchair.

  She was rather annoyed with her father. The more he went on like this the more she would resist. He had arranged one marriage for her and, though she had come to love her husband, no one could say that things had turned out well for her. Very much the reverse. She wouldn’t let him do it again. She was a British citizen, used to British ways, unacceptable as some of them might be. As she began the walk back to Hexam Place, the idea of British ways turned her thoughts to the problem of Lucy and the TV man, not to consider any longer whether to tell Mr Still – that would have such terrible consequences as not to be contemplated – but simply to think about the situation and how different it would be if Lucy were not herself British-born but a member of a family hailing from Pakistan. Her own, for instance. Why, if any of her female relatives had behaved like that, if not subjected to an honour killing, she would at least have been shut up somewhere and probably beaten. Rabia, gentle and loving with children, generally subservient to male relatives, thought this kind of violence on the whole a good idea.

  The Saint Zita Society met in the Dugong at lunchtime to discuss the items on a very full agenda. Present – June made a note of the names – were herself, Thea, Montserrat, Jimmy, Henry and Sondra. Apologies were from Richard, Beacon, Rabia and Zinnia. No alcohol was drunk while the business was under discussion.

  June made a very eloquent speech on the revolting evils of packaging up one’s dog’s excrement in a plastic bag and leaving it under a tree. An unsatisfactory letter had come from the council, extolling its own street-cleaning plan and hygiene consciousness. It was unanimously decided tha
t Thea should write again. June thought she should have been asked to write but she said nothing, merely looked sulky. Noise in the street was dismissed as being mostly caused by employers, not employees. Smoking and sitting on doorsteps was raised under Any Other Business along with cats squealing in back gardens at night and pigeons fouling doorsteps. It was unanimously agreed that asking householders to keep their cats in at night would have no effect, besides the fact that no one at the meeting could recall any resident of Hexam Place having a cat. The squealers must have come in from Eaton Square or Sloane Gardens. Much the same applied to pigeons.

  Sondra wanted to know if Thea had meant smoking while one was sitting on a doorstep, to which Thea replied, ‘Whatever,’ and had to be told by June that all responses should be addressed to the meeting through the chair. By the time the date had been fixed for the next meeting tempers had run rather high, but everyone calmed down when Henry fetched glasses of wine for all. Montserrat and Jimmy were the last to leave, Montserrat’s thoughts much concerned with the new man she had met in a club two nights before. Ciaran had spent that night and last night with her in her flat at number 7 and seemed keener than any man had for a couple of years. No question of Rohypnol there and no fear of Ciaran O’Hara stealing Lucy’s jewellery. But she was in a dilemma. To tell him about the arrangement she had with Lucy and Rad Sothern or to say nothing? But suppose she said nothing and he happened to see her admitting or letting Rad out by the basement door? It was quite possible he might and then it would be too late to explain about the arrangement and that Rad was Lucy’s lover, not hers. Lucy and Preston would soon be back and Rad would certainly expect to pay a visit in the coming week, if not two visits. What was she to do?

  Though now twenty-five years old, Henry kept up his childhood fondness for Halloween and all that entailed. He would have liked to knock on doors, offering trick or treat, but feared the likelihood of a rebuff from his employer who would certainly find out about it. Eventually, all he could come up with was to get into Halloween fancy dress on the evening of 31 October and, attired in a black robe bought in an Asian shop, his face painted in black and white to look like a skull, walk up to the Dugong for a drink with Jimmy at eight.

  He met no child celebrants on the way, but seeing Damian and Roland approaching, jumped out on them from behind a tree, groaning appropriately and flapping his hands. Roland swore but Damian jumped and took a step back.

  ‘Isn’t it time you grew up?’ said Roland.

  Henry laughed. Perhaps he could persuade Jimmy to join him in a haunting of Eaton Place and stand with him on the steps of the Royal Court Theatre, collecting for some fictitious charity. But Jimmy was dressed in his normal clothes and interested in traditional high jinks only from the point of view of banning them. Dr Jefferson, he said, being famously concerned for children in every aspect, believed they were endangered by wandering the streets and ringing strangers’ doorbells. After a couple of beers (Jimmy) and two glasses of red wine (Henry) they moved out into the street, looking for offenders, but the squares and crescents and streets of Belgravia were empty of children and it had begun to rain.

  For Dex the evening was full of fear and strange sights. He had forgotten why he had gone out in the first place, perhaps to buy a bottle of Guinness or a Thai takeaway. Whatever it was, it had been driven out of his head by the evil spirits to be seen round every corner, for the district where Dex lived was more populated by children and teenagers than Hexam Place and its environs. They were, it seemed to him, everywhere in their cloaks and masks, their face paint and their wigs and helmets. Shouting and dancing and congregating on doorsteps. He recognised them for what they were. What surprised him was that there were so many of them and all together, all of the same sort of age, and not one looking like a real child but disguised as evil spirits always will disguise themselves. Peach would perhaps want him to destroy them but he couldn’t, not so many. They would overpower him.

  He was getting soaked, the rain drenching his hair and trickling down his thin jacket. He went home empty-handed, having quite forgotten what he went out for.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I like it here,’ Huguette said. ‘Why haven’t we ever been here before?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘Because it’s too near your mum and dad’s place.’

  And too popular with their housekeeper and the butler or whatever he is and a lot of other people who might speak out of turn. He suspected that Huguette wanted them to be caught, the alternative that he move in with her and they use the pub round the corner on the King’s Road.

  ‘What are you going to say if your dad comes in here and sees you with me? Just what?’ The much worse possibility was if her mother came in. Henry didn’t want even to think about that one.

  ‘He won’t, he’s out somewhere. I’d just say I was on my way to their place and I ran into you and you said to come and have a drink.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not drinking and I’ve got to pick your dad up in ten minutes.’

  ‘I want you to think about asking him for my hand in marriage.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘We’d have such nice-looking kids. We’re a handsome couple. Don’t you think? He might say yes because of that.’

  ‘I’m not risking it,’ said Henry.

  ‘Where are you picking him up?’

  ‘At the House of course.’

  ‘Then you can take me home first.’

  It was easier than arguing.

  ‘I’ll bring the Beemer round the corner.’ Henry left her there and went cautiously out into Hexam Place. But not cautiously enough. There, on the pavement outside number 3 was Beacon talking to Jimmy. Henry gave them an insouciant sort of wave and got into the driver’s seat of the BMW. By the time he had turned round the corner at the Dugong, Beacon had gone to fetch the Audi and Jimmy, who was the envy of all because he hardly did any work, had gone into Dr Jefferson’s house.

  Beacon had caught a glimpse of a head of fuzzy golden hair attached to a slender body emerging from the Dugong. He slightly resented it because it was his opinion that this kind of hair was attractive only when black and the skin from which it grew black also. Yellow was ugly anyway, no matter who it belonged to. Never mind, it was nothing to do with him, and tonight he was going to have an early night. For some mysterious reason, Mr Still was coming home hours sooner than usual and Beacon would be able to pass the evening in his favourite way, in the bosom of his family.

  He had barely turned into Sloane Street when the first firework went off. In words used by half the population of London – excepting those under eighteen – Beacon said to himself that it wasn’t even Guy Fawkes Day until tomorrow.

  Montserrat awoke to a sense of foreboding that had nothing to do with its being 5 November. It was hard to say what it was to do with for the feeling was fairly familiar and even she had to admit that mostly it meant nothing. Perhaps it referred only to its being Friday, one of the days Zinnia didn’t come till the afternoon and she was supposed to prepare and carry up Lucy’s breakfast. She lay in bed half an hour longer, heard Beacon bring the Audi round to the front door and Mr Still’s voice saying good morning to him. Montserrat thought Mr Still was probably the only person left in London to say good morning and not hi or how are you.

  The starfruit yogurt and plate of ruby grapefruit (covered in cling film) had been left ready in the fridge, the single slice of wholegrain bread was actually in the toaster waiting to be toasted and the coffee machine had only to be switched on. The tray was set with cutlery and pot of blueberry conserve – Lucy ate conserve, not jam – and Montserrat had only to wait five minutes. She poured herself the first cup of coffee, then set off with the tray.

  Lucy was sitting up in bed, swathed in a lace shawl. ‘I thought you’d forgotten me.’

  In no mood to be rebuked, Montserrat said, ‘Your clock is five minutes fast.’

  Her eyes alighted on something that shouldn’t have been on Lucy’s dressing table: Mr Still’s b
unch of keys. Standing between Lucy and the dressing table, Montserrat scooped up the keys and put them in the pocket of her trousers. She couldn’t have said why, only that it seemed safer.

  ‘I’m expecting Rad tonight.’ When Lucy gave this notification, sometimes twice a week, sometimes only once, she put on a sexy drawl and even slightly changed her posture, reclining and raising one arm and letting the hand drop negligently. ‘About seven. I thought we might have champers. Would you like to bring up a bottle from the fridge at six thirty-ish?’

  Considering the gesture very unsophisticated, Montserrat said she would. There was no reason why the able-bodied Lucy, toned by frequent jogging and gym visits, shouldn’t have fetched the champage herself but she never did anything. Once Montserrat had seen her drop a pound coin on the floor and ask Zinnia to pick it up for her. She went back to the basement with a second cup of coffee, avoiding the loose banister. Rabia’s cousin Mohammed was coming tomorrow to fix it. Montserrat supposed she would be expected to stay in all day to let him in. Unless, maybe, she could persuade Rabia to do that …

  First there was the problem of Mr Still’s keys. If she did nothing, Beacon would bring Mr Still home at between ten and ten thirty and Mr Still would ring the front doorbell. Very likely but not inevitably. He was usually late on a Friday except when the family was going down to Gallowmill Hall next day. Were they? She didn’t know. No one had said but they didn’t always say. Montserrat decided to call Beacon and find out if Mr Still had mentioned forgetting his keys. The difficulty was that Beacon was such a moralistic pig of a man, like a vicar or something. She had once asked him on a day Rad was coming if he would let her know when Mr Still was leaving his office and he had asked, very suspiciously, what business it was of hers.