by Daisy Waugh
CHAPTER 30
Life at Tode Hall settled down a little after that. Alice and India formed a bond over the failure of the mega meeting. Alice, with her eternally unruffled approach to everything in life, and by making a lot of quite funny references to broad beans, somehow managed to turn the incident into a joke.
‘They’ll come round in the end,’ Alice comforted her, calmly. ‘They’d be stupid not to.’
On Geraldine’s advice Alice changed the locks to the Gardener’s House. On her own advice, she brought in a locksmith all the way from York, paid him in cash, and organised everything without consulting anyone at the Hall. Since it wasn’t really clear who at the Hall she could trust; who had keys, or who knew what about whom, or who ought to know what, or even whether she knew what she thought she knew about anyone (et cetera), Alice decided to say nothing about anything to anyone – except of course, to Geraldine, her new, most-irritating friend and replacement grandmother.
Her duties as Tode Hall Manager for Fun remained obscure. In truth, though nobody wanted to admit to it, Alice had been hired as nothing much more than a companion for India. She didn’t mind. As long as she was paid, and she wasn’t expected to work too hard, or investigate any murders, or to stand for too long in the cold, she didn’t really care what the job entailed. She liked India, she liked Egbert, she liked her little house. She liked looking out of her window onto the Rose Garden, and above all, she liked gossiping with Geraldine Tode at night. In fact, most unexpectedly, and possibly for the first time in her life, she was almost – very nearly – happy.
At some point, maybe towards the end of her second week at Tode, India said to Alice: ‘I’m still not sure what your job really is, Alice, are you?’
Alice lied. She said she had ‘a pretty good idea’.
‘Good,’ India said: ‘I just have faith that it’ll become clear. I think the universe had a reason for sending you to me and I am humble enough to wait for that reason to be revealed.’
Alice chuckled. ‘Good for you.’
‘Anyway who cares? It doesn’t matter, does it, as long as we’re having fun! And I know I’m having fun. Are you, Alice? Are you OK? I’m just so happy you’ve come here. Because Egbert’s a brick and all that. I adore him. You know I do. And the kids, obviously. I adore the kids! But I swear, I’d be so damn bored without you being around. I don’t think I’d be able to hack it.’
CHAPTER 31
On her third Saturday at Tode Hall Alice, in an uncharacteristic burst of willpower, overcame her distaste for mud and freezing winds, and took herself into the blustery great outdoors, thinking, after all, that it might be more enjoyable than she realised. It was what other people did during weekends in the country, and many of them genuinely liked it.
She trudged slowly along the front of the house, where a few tourists still lingered in the wind and cold, and then further, towards Africa Folly and the mausoleum. It would be an hour’s brisk walk there and back – slightly too far for perfection, Alice thought. She had only decided on doing it because she missed her triplets and there was nothing on the telly.
But it wasn’t so bad once she got out there, of course. Perhaps, she thought, as she huffed up the hill, she should get a dog? It might encourage her to venture outside more often. It might stop her spending so much of her free time talking to a ghost.
At Africa Folly she paused to catch her breath and admire the view. She remembered that sunny evening, forty years ago, with Ecgbert, before they put him in the funny house; and with herself, before her mother died. They’d been happy – well, of course. They were different people then. In any case, the memory didn’t make her feel comfortable. She brushed it away. Looked back at the Hall, splayed out in the fading light below: vast and beautiful and outrageous; utterly unaware of the great burden it represented, the unending demands it made on its caretakers. Sometimes she glimpsed Egbert, on whose shoulders this vast responsibility now lay: such a loving husband, such a decent father, such a worried man. She wondered if there wasn’t a part of him which longed to be back in Wandsworth, selling terraced houses to bankers.
But she didn’t waste much time on sympathy. It was his fault for having accepted Lady Tode’s offer.
Ahead of her, at the bottom of the hill, was the mausoleum. She’d not been back since the day she went with Egbert to see the body, but she felt she probably couldn’t avoid it forever. She continued walking – after all, the sooner she got there, the sooner she could turn back, the sooner she could return to her sofa, her hot bath – and perhaps some spaghetti Bolognese if she could be bothered to make it.
She was preoccupied with thoughts of the Bolognese (and the tiresomeness of not having a mini Waitrose in the village), so it wasn’t until she was directly in front of it that she noticed the door to the mausoleum was wide open.
Odd, she thought. It was beginning to get dark already, it being a quarter-to-four in late November. She hesitated: was it part of her job, as Monitor for Fun, to pull the door closed again? The image of Emma Tode’s body lying in a black pool of blood flashed before her, and she decided that no – it was not her job.
On the other hand – she couldn’t just leave it hanging open. Not when there were still tourists milling about. They might wander in, trip on a loose piece of stone, break a leg, sue the estate. Die. All this went through her head as she stood before the open door, hesitating.
She had to close the bloody door. She called out first – just in case. Nobody answered. She called a second time, just to be sure. Still no reply. Finally, feeling sick, and trying hard not to think of Lady Tode and the pool of blood, she took the last few steps toward the building, and grabbed the handle.
It wouldn’t shut. It was a big door, old and heavy, and it had warped slightly over all the years it had stood there. The bolt and the latch weren’t flush, and each time she tugged at it, the door swung gently ajar again. She gave up. When she let go of the handle for the last time she discovered that the door, left to its own devices, didn’t just swing ajar: something about the tilt of the frame, or the weight of the door, compelled it to keep on swinging until it hung wide open, just as Alice had found it.
Mr Carfizzi’s words rang, word for word, in her head. ‘Of course she wasn’t locked in,’ he had said. He kept saying it. ‘The door was closed but it wasn’t locked. That is why nobody never suspected something. Of course she wasn’t locked in…’ Hadn’t he said that? Hadn’t he positively snarled it at her, as they were gazing down at Emma Tode’s body? There had been something odd and shrill and hostile about his insistence. It was why, now, she remembered it so clearly.
So he’d been lying. When Egbert and she and Violet had stood outside the mausoleum that day, complaining about the smell of sheep, the door had been shut tight. Egbert had said it wasn’t possible to go into the mausoleum because he didn’t have a key.
Carfizzi had lied. The door wouldn’t shut unless it was locked and now it was hanging open. She decided against hanging around to find out why. She imagined dying in there. She imagined someone coming up behind her, now, and pushing her inside, locking the door and leaving her, surrounded by old coffins. And no electric light. And no one within earshot. That was enough. She backed up, turned away, broke into a panicky jog. She would send a text to Egbert when she got home. But right now, she only wanted to put some space between herself and that open door.
She didn’t get far: ten yards at best. She heard footsteps behind her, and then a hand on her shoulder.
Fat hairy fingers. A gold signet ring. A waft of sickly aftershave. A flash of shiny white-capped teeth.
‘Mr Carfizzi,’ said Alice, trying to sound normal: ‘Hello there! Goodness! Hahaha. You scared the life out of me!’
His mouth was grinning, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He kept his hairy hand on her shoulder.
‘How lovely to see you!’ Alice said.
He was wearing a leather tanner’s apron over his two-tone tailored winter coat, and in
his other hand he was clutching a hammer.
‘And to see you, Alice!’ he said, his white teeth clanging, ‘We must stop meeting like this!’
‘What?’ said Alice. ‘But we haven’t! What do you mean?’ She looked at his hand, still resting on her shoulder, but he didn’t move it. After a moment, she couldn’t stand it any longer, and brushed it off. ‘We’ve never met like this. I was trying to close the door, but it—’ She stopped. Thought better than to finish the sentence. She said instead, ‘I had no idea you were inside…’
‘You look terrified,’ he said blandly.
‘Well I…’ Again, she stopped. ‘Well, I suppose the last time I was up here was when Lady Tode was – you know – lying on the floor there. I just… The memory of it… That’s all.’ She glanced behind him. The door to the mausoleum gaped open, just a few steps away; and beyond it, pure darkness. There was no one around; only her and Carfizzi. If he wanted to kill her, right now: if he wanted to push her into that black hole and close the door and lock it – there was nothing to stop him.
But why would he want to do that? There was no reason. None whatsoever. She tried to smile. ‘Doesn’t it give you the creeps, just a tiny bit?’
He shook his head. ‘I am very comfortable around death,’ he said. ‘In Calabria my father was a mortician. I have no problem with it.’
‘Oh,’ said Alice. ‘Gosh.’
‘Gosh,’ he repeated, and smiled. To Alice, it sounded menacing. ‘I am here arranging the shelf in preparation for Lady Tode’s coffin. I want to be certain everything is perfect when she is ready to rejoin us. Of course we can’t trust Mr Groper. He’s only been with us five years. Why would he care?’
‘Mr Groper?’
‘Our carpenter,’ Carfizzi explained. ‘Mr Groper didn’t know Lady Tode. Not really. Not like I did. He can’t be trusted to do it properly.’
‘All right then,’ Alice said. ‘All right. Well then, that’s nice. I’ll let you get on. Good luck with that. And have a good evening. I’m probably going to head home. If that’s all right with you.’
‘You do that,’ he said. ‘That’s a good idea. It’s getting dark.’
She backed away from him and he stood there, watching her, as if daring her to return.
CHAPTER 32
‘Don’t laugh,’ India said. ‘I’ve actually been thinking quite a lot about it.’
He tweaked her nipple.
She pushed him away. ‘I’m serious. I actually don’t think I’ve had sex with anyone over the age of, like, thirty-four – and by the way that’s only Egbert, so it doesn’t count. You are literally very nearly double the age of anyone I’ve had sex with, ever before! Apart from Hamish Tomlinson, I suppose,’ she added. ‘He was pretty old. But that was yonks ago.’
‘Hamish Tomlinson?’ he muttered. He wasn’t really listening. ‘Is he a threat? Should I send a hitman?’ He ran his hand along the inside of her thigh, burrowed his grey head beneath the duvet… She batted him off, irritated. ‘It’s not funny Dominic, I think what we’re doing is probably a bit gross and perverted.’
‘It’s neither, darling. It’s fun,’ he said. ‘It’s what people do in the country…’ He rolled back onto the pillow, lit himself a cigarette.
India made a show of waving the smell away and coughing but as they were in his bedroom she couldn’t much complain. He ignored her anyway.
‘What was that pop song?’ he asked. ‘You’re probably too young… “We dance and drink and screw because there’s nothing else to do…” Welcome to rural life, sweetheart. There’s nothing perverted about it. What’s perverted,’ he added, ‘is the puritanical work ethic of our miserable town folk…’ But he was talking to himself. In any case, India could never have been accused of puritanical anything.
She said: ‘I do feel a bit guilty, Dominic. Poor Eggie, working his socks off…’
Dominic laughed. ‘You don’t feel remotely guilty, India my love, and nor should you. He’s dragged you away from your beloved London. You’ve literally sacrificed your entire life to look after this place. What more does he want? What more can he ask for?… Besides, sweet girl, Egbert can’t expect to have you all to himself. That would be unfair.’
A silence fell. India said: ‘Do you think I should cut my hair? I think it’s a bit long.’
‘Darling, your hair is liquid gold. Why would you want to cut it? Don’t cut it, I beg you.’
‘You’re so lovely to me, Dominic!’ She smiled at him. ‘I’m so happy I found you.’
‘And me you, darling. And me you.’
It had been a nice afternoon for both of them. Egbert had gone to a meeting of Yorkshire landowners to discuss – India didn’t actually know. Something to do with grouse, maybe. Or subsidies. Who cared? The children had woken up insisting on spending yet another session at the Boathouse. India couldn’t face it. So she’d offered the au pair, whose day off it was, an extra fifty quid in overtime to do it for her. Everyone was happy.
‘I ought to leave,’ India said. ‘Duty-Dinz tonight with the awful vicar and his disgusting, creepy wife.’
‘She is creepy, isn’t she?’ agreed Dominic. ‘Always sucking up.’
‘She sucks up to Egbert like crazy. He’s so sweet though, I’m not sure he even notices it.’
‘Men generally don’t,’ Dominic said.
But she’d moved on. ‘How on earth do you think Emma put up with Mrs Carfizzi’s cooking all those years?’ she said. ‘Why did she never say anything? It’s a mystery – more than a mystery, actually. It’s torture. We can smell the food she cooks for herself and Carfizzi. I can smell it, seeping up the stairs – the most delicious Italian cooking smells come wafting through the back of the house. And then she comes into our kitchen and serves us boiled cabbage. And she won’t change. She refuses. It’s a nightmare, Dominic. Everyone’s still so in love with that woman, they won’t change anything. It’s driving me mad.’
‘In love with Mrs Carfizzi?’
‘Obviously not. I mean fucking Emma. She’s dead and I still can’t get her off my back. What’s it going to take?’
Dominic didn’t reply. He dragged on his cigarette and considered his response. It wasn’t nice of India to refer to Emma as ‘fucking Emma’. But India knew that. So he left a silence.
‘I don’t mean fucking Emma,’ she muttered. ‘Of course not. But you know what I mean. Everybody adored her so much. And she was a bitch to me. You saw it. You did, didn’t you?’
‘I did, sweetheart. But she’s gone now. You can move on.’
‘I wish I could…’ She stopped. It seemed she wanted to say more.
Dominic glanced at her. ‘What’s up?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He turned. ‘What’s up, India?’ he asked again.
‘Nothing. Nothing…’ And then, in a rush. ‘She told me that morning she’d cancelled the trip. She told me she wasn’t going to Capri. That she was talking to her lawyers about maybe booting us out of Tode Hall. I didn’t believe her but…’
There was a long pause then. Very long.
Dominic said, ‘Did she?… Why didn’t you say something?’
India shrugged. She looked shifty. ‘Well… She didn’t. She didn’t say it exactly… Maybe she didn’t say it. I don’t think she really did… Honestly Dominic, I was just so relieved to see the back of her at that point. When she disappeared, I didn’t think: “Oh, she must be lying dead in the mausoleum.” Obviously. I assumed she hadn’t cancelled the trip after all…’
‘You knew she was missing?’ Dominic said. His voice was cold.
‘No! No – of course I didn’t know… I didn’t know know. If you know what I mean.’ It sounded unbelievable, even to her own ears. ‘I mean – no, of course not.’
‘Well then.’ He leaned back on the pillow again. ‘What are you worrying about?’
‘I just feel so awful… I couldn’t stand her. But all that time we thought she was in Capri…’
&
nbsp; ‘… She was dead in the mausoleum.’
India shivered. ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’
Dominic took some time to reply. ‘Yes. It’s horrible,’ he said slowly. ‘But you mustn’t blame yourself, darling. You weren’t to know.’
India said: ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you? I mean, there’s nothing to tell. But—’
‘Of course not.’ He tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work. The old acting skills weren’t up to it. His handsome face had lost its colour.
‘Do you miss her?’ India asked at last.
He said: ‘Who? Emma?’
‘Obviously, Emma. You two were friendly, weren’t you? I used to see you, chatting together like old chums. You must miss her.’
‘We got along well, on the whole,’ he said carefully. ‘Yes, of course we did. But – as you know – she was a difficult woman. Absolutely delightful… as long as she got her way. But she could be cruel, sometimes. Quietly unkind… You weren’t the only one who felt it.’ He smiled. ‘… Do I miss her? I suppose I do, a little, yes.’ He had finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out, and turned again towards India, naked on the pillow beside him. ‘But having you here makes all the difference. If Emma hadn’t died, and the shock of all that… Really it was the shock of it all that threw us together. Wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose it was.’
‘We might never have found each other. We might have carried on, like ships that pass in the night…’
India smirked. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
She climbed out of the bed. It was a pretty room – old fashioned, with thick chintz curtains at the cottage windows – and it belonged to the Todes. The cottage, the ebony bed with angel carvings, the mahogany bookshelf, the light fittings – everything, except for the old clock radio, the books and Dominic’s clothes. It was all India’s. But she didn’t think of it like that, and neither did he.
He stayed in bed and watched her dress. ‘Why don’t you come to dinner too?’ she said. ‘Might make it a bit more fun if you did. Will you? Perhaps I could get Alice to come as well. That would be nice. You could get to know her better. Do you like her?’
