by Ruth Rendell
James Melcombe-Smith (30), Conservative member for South Wessex, marries his childhood sweetheart Zillah Leach (27) at the chapel of St. Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. A likely candidate for promotion when the party leader reshuffles the shadow cabinet, Mr. Melcombe-Smith and his bride will defer their honeymoon in the Maldives until the House of Commons gets up for Easter on 20 April.
Minty wasn’t very interested in any of that but she admired the bride’s looks, considering her far prettier and better-dressed in her ivory slipper satin with cream and crimson orchids than Josephine in that ugly bright red. Josephine’s glare and curling lip still rankled, and Minty felt resentful. She turned to the inside page but it only showed this Melcombe-Smith person walking about in the country with a gun and the bride grinning like mad in a dirty old sweater with her hair all over the place, under a completely incomprehensible heading: OUTING? WHO HAS THE LAST LAUGH NOW?
The trouble with some newspapers was that the ink came off all over your hands. Minty went upstairs and had a bath. Jock’s ghost would be back. If not today, tomorrow-and if not tomorrow, next week. Because she hadn’t killed it. That dinner knife was a hopeless weapon. It simply made a ghost slip away for a while, escape, like any live person would when a weapon was waved at it. Next time she must be ready with one of the long, sharp knives if she wanted to be rid of him forever.
Chapter 9
A PRODUCTION COMPANY had asked Matthew to go on a program it was making for BBC2 Television. It was to be called Living on Air or something like that, and he was to be-well-the star, really. That is, he was to talk to people with problems similar to his own, interview them, and point up the differences between disparate attitudes to food. They’d make a pilot, and if that was a success it might lead to a series. Michelle was delighted. Matthew was so much better-looking since he’d been on Fiona’s regime and he had such a beautiful speaking voice.
“It always reminds me of that newscaster,” said Fiona. “What’s he called? Peter Sissons.”
“They must have picked him because he sounds so nice,” said Michelle.
Fiona doubted that. They’d obviously picked him because of his column and because he looked like one of those men you saw pictures of who’d been in Japanese prisoner of war camps. But she didn’t say so. The two women were in Fiona’s conservatory, drinking chilled chardonnay, while Matthew was at his computer, writing this week’s “Anorexic’s Diary.” It was the prettier sort of conservatory, a white, curlicued crystal palace, with white cane furniture, blue cushions, a cane-and-glass table, and a great many little bonsai trees and tall ferns and spider plants in blue ceramic pots. Beyond the glass could be seen Fiona’s small walled garden in which spring flowers bloomed and a fountain played.
“Jeff will be home in a minute,” said Fiona, for all the world as if her boyfriend had a job and commuted like the neighbors. Then she went on, embarrassing Michelle, “You don’t like him, do you?”
“I don’t really know him, Fiona.” Michelle was finding this very awkward, but asked so directly, she had to speak out. “I admit I have wondered-and Matthew’s wondered-if you’re not being…well, a bit precipitate, marrying someone you’ve only known for a few months.”
Fiona didn’t seem put out. “I know that this is the man I’m certain I want to spend the rest of my life with. Please try to like him.”
He lives off you, he’s rude, he’s insincere and cruel, thought Michelle. He’s a liar. These feelings must have shown in her face, though she expressed none of them aloud, for Fiona had begun to look distressed. “When you know him better you’ll think differently, I know you will.”
“All right, my dear, I admit I don’t much care for him. No doubt it’s as much my fault as his. Since he’s going to be your husband, I’ll try to get on better with him.”
“You’re always so reasonable and fair. Have some more wine?”
Michelle let Fiona pour another inch of chardonnay into her glass. It was supposed to be fattening, but she’d noticed that most of the people whose preferred tipple it was remained disconcertingly thin. She’d been strong and not eaten a single one of the salted almonds in the dish on the table. Resigned, she asked, “Have you fixed a date for the wedding yet?”
“Believe it or not, we can’t find anywhere to have our reception. Apparently, everyone wants to get married in millennium year. It was going to be June but we’ve had to move on into August. That’s where Jeff is now, trying to find a venue.”
Surely he could have done that on the phone, thought Michelle. Still, she was delighted the wedding was to be postponed. As for trying to like him, it was more probable that every week that went by was likely to begin the eye-opening she and Matthew hoped would enlighten Fiona as to Jeff’s true nature. “Church or register office?”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be either now, does it? Jeff’s been married before so it can’t be church but the idea might be to have it in some hotel with the reception there afterward.” She paused to listen to the front door opening and closing. “Here’s Jeff now.”
He came through the dining room and down the step. Smiling, as usual. An honest face like one of those American politicians, thought Michelle, perfect teeth, earnest frown lines, and deep blue eyes that looked straight into yours. He bent over Fiona and kissed her like some film actor coming home to his wife. Michelle, who didn’t want it, got a kiss too, a light peck on the cheek.
“How’s the Thin Man?”
“Very well, thank you,” said Michelle, angry but speaking in an equable tone because she wouldn’t for the world offend Fiona.
“I hear he’s going to be on TV.” Because there was no glass provided for him, Jeff took Fiona’s almost empty one, filled it, and knocked back half. “You want to get on it too, Michelle, and see if you can be the new Little and Large. Oh, don’t look like that, Fiona sweetheart, it’s only my way. I ought to know better. Listen, I’ve found a wonderful place in Surrey where they’ll marry us and serve a splendid dinner afterward. Twenty-sixth of August-how about that?”
“It sounds perfect,” said Michelle, thinking it was a long way off. “I must go, Fiona. Thank you so much for the lovely drinks.”
“I’ll see you off the premises.” For some reason Jeff winked stagily at Fiona. He escorted Michelle to the door and sent, as was his peculiar habit, his “kindest regards” to Matthew. The front door shut rather sharply before she was halfway down the path.
“That,” said Fiona, who wasn’t usually critical, “was rather rude. You can be very hurtful, you know.”
Concern could entirely change his face. It became at once pained. Saddened, sympathetic. “I know. I’m sorry, my sweet. I suppose I can’t help thinking that people who allow themselves to get so fat must be stupid.”
“Michelle’s not stupid.”
“No? Oh, well, you know best. Shall we have another bottle of wine?”
“It won’t be cold.”
“Easily remedied by popping it in the freezer for five minutes.”
He remedied it. While waiting for the wine to cool, he decided to take her out to dinner, spend part of the rather large sum of money he’d won on a horse that afternoon. He got out two clean glasses, put them on a tray with the wine, and went back. “How about I call Rosmarino and take you out to dinner, my darling? I mean I take you out.” Pouring the wine, he was inspired. “I’ve been investing in the Net and I’m doing rather well.”
She knew all about that, as of course she would. “I didn’t know you had shares in anything. How clever of you. But be careful, won’t you, Jeff? We don’t know much about these companies [email protected] and [email protected] and whatever. Their profits may all be on paper.”
He changed the subject fast, veering onto the matter he’d been thinking of mentioning since Sunday when seeing it in the paper had given him such a shock. If he could have avoided it altogether he would have, but he dared not. Still, he must go carefully. “You remember that wedding in the
paper on Sunday? Front page of the Mail?”
She never read the news, just the city pages. “Sorry, I was only interested in that merger. Why?”
“I feel a bit odd about telling you, though I don’t know why I should. It’s not as if I’ve done anything wrong.” He looked at her, into her eyes. “Hold my hand, Fiona. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.” His voice was solemn. “Fiona, listen to me. My ex-wife got married. It was in the paper. She married an MP.”
She took both his hands, pulled him toward her. “Oh, Jeff. Oh, darling. Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“I don’t know. I should have. Somehow I couldn’t.”
“It’s made you unhappy, hasn’t it? I do understand. I know you love me, I know that, but you can still be desperately hurt by something like this. It’s absolutely natural. Kiss me.”
They kissed, gently at first, then more passionately. Jeff was the first to break away. “I’ll phone the restaurant.”
Fiona smiled to herself a little ruefully. It was, as she’d said, entirely natural that he should be a little unhappy. She thought of various men in her past, two of whom had subsequently married other women. Unreasonably, she’d been upset, though she hadn’t wanted them, wouldn’t have dreamt of remaining with them. When he came back she gave him a lovely warm smile, almost maternal. “D’you want to tell me about it?” She took his hand again. “You don’t have to. Only if you want to.”
“I rather think I do. Her name’s Zillah. Z-I-double-L-A-H. She’s a Gypsy or likes people to think she is, a Romany. We met at university. Of course we were both very young. It was the old story, we grew apart from each other. There wasn’t anyone else or anything like that. Well, there was always this chap she’s married, they knew each other as kids, but I used to think he was gay.”
“What about the children, Jeff?”
“I suppose they’re with her.” He was wondering how much to tell her. “That worries me too. Of course, she’s done her best to keep my children from me.”
“I’d like children,” said Fiona in a small voice.
“Of course you would. Aren’t I relying on that? Darling, by this time next year we may well have our first baby. I’ll be the perfect house husband, stay at home and look after it.”
“What’s her name?”
“Whose? Zillah’s?” He thought fast. “Her maiden name was Leach. The bloke she’s married, the ex-queer, is called Melcombe-Smith. He’s the MP for where she comes from down in Dorset.”
Fiona nodded. She didn’t say any more but went upstairs to change. Jeff decided to finish the bottle. They could have a cab to and from the restaurant. He’d been very shaken by the wedding picture and accompanying story, so disturbed that now he’d told her he couldn’t stay in the house with Fiona but had to go out and take himself for a walk up to Fortune Green and back. It was pretty obvious that the letter he’d written on Matthew Jarvey’s computer and sent to Zillah had been taken seriously. He’d expected Minty to take hers seriously, she was thick enough, that was the point of it, but not Zillah. The whole idea had been to give her a signal that he intended to disappear, she wouldn’t be troubled by him again. He hadn’t intended to give her carte blanche to remarry, just as if they’d been properly divorced or he’d really died. In a few years’ time, maybe, when she hadn’t seen him for ages, but not after six months. Still, in a way, he decided, after he turned in at Fiona’s gate once more, he had to hand it to her. She’d got a nerve marrying an upper-class rich git like that Melcombe-Smith and telling the paper she was childless Miss Leach. Or he supposed she had. They’d had to get it from somewhere and where else but her?
Drinking the last of the wine, he reflected briefly on his children and, as he did so, felt something quite alien to him, a pang of real sorrow. He’d never seen much of them, particularly Jordan, but when he’d been with them he’d loved them. It was just that he couldn’t stand that domestic scene, Mr. and Mrs., Mummy and Daddy sharing the household tasks, the weekly shop, the preparation of food, the kids always there, always hurting themselves and crying, making a mess. Being poor, never knowing where the next penny was coming from. Zillah was a good enough sort of mother, or he’d always thought she was, never going out in the evening and leaving them on their own, though he’d tried to persuade her. As if they weren’t safe as houses in a country village surrounded by kindly neighbors. He’d felt quite secure about going off and leaving them all for weeks on end because he could trust Zillah to look after his children. But now?
He’d kept the pages of the paper with her pictures but he’d read the story so many times he knew it by heart. She hadn’t told the reporter a word about being a Gypsy-he’d never believed that anyway-or about a previous marriage or Watling not Leach being her maiden name. Most troubling of all, she very obviously hadn’t mentioned the children’s existence. He knew enough about reporters-he’d once been involved with quite a well-known freelance journalist-to be aware that it’s useless for an interviewee to implore the interviewer “not to say anything about” a secret once disclosed. What you’ve said is what you get. Leaving out bits of what you’d said was another matter, taking things out of context to change the sense. This was different. In a story of this kind there was no chance that if Zillah had told the Mail she had two small children, whether born inside or outside marriage, its reporter would have meekly agreed to keep quiet. So she hadn’t told them. What had she done with his children?
Fiona came downstairs looking lovely in a white suit with a very short, tight skirt and high-heeled black patent shoes. He felt the stirrings of lust. An evening spent in bed would have done a lot to dispel his anxieties about Eugenie and Jordan, but it wasn’t to be. His fault; he’d suggested dinner.
A taxi appeared, coming down Fortune Green Road. Just as well, since Fiona couldn’t have walked another yard in those heels. He was going to have to meet Zillah and talk to her, see his kids, he’d a right to see his kids, they were his. Their paternity was something he’d never disputed. They both looked exactly like him, as reliable a guide, he’d always thought, as any DNA test.
“Try not to let it prey on your mind, Jeff.”
For a moment he was afraid she’d read his thoughts. Then he realized that, of course, she imagined he was brooding on his “ex-wife” remarrying.
“You’ve got me now and we’ve a new life ahead of us.”
It might not be a bad idea to let Fiona go on thinking he was unhappy about his final parting from Zillah. In the future, if he seemed preoccupied or absent-minded or just silent, she’d attribute it to this. “I know,” he said. “Don’t think I’m not absolutely content with that. I’m thinking of my son and my little girl. And it’s just that…well, she was my first love.” He took her hand. “And you’re my last. First in my heart and last in my life.” The taxi turned into Blenheim Terrace and he felt in his pockets. “Have you got any change, darling? I’ve only a twenty-pound note.”
Fiona paid the taxi driver. When they were at their table she asked him a bit more about Zillah. “If you wanted a meeting with her, talk it through, that sort of thing, I wouldn’t mind.”
In a way this was his opportunity. It would be wiser not to take it. She might want to come with him or meet Zillah herself. He nearly shuddered. Fiona, with her house, her money, her inheritance, her job, was (as he put it to himself) the best woman who had ever happened to him. “No, my darling. I want to put it all behind me.”
He studied the wine list. In spite of what he’d told Fiona, he wouldn’t use the money he’d made on the horse called Website but instead would pay with the American Express card he’d found in another restaurant, fallen on the floor under a table in Langan’s, where he’d been as the guest of a woman he’d picked up on the Duke of York steps. The card had belonged to one J. H. Leigh and it was this find of his that led to his assuming the name of Leigh when he first met Fiona. He was still Lewis with funny little Minty Knox at the time and for a new identity had been toying with the idea of
Long or Lane, but Leigh it was to be. He’d used the card sparingly at first and for small items, always expecting to be told it had been canceled. Nothing happened. He paid for meals with it, even bought clothes for Fiona with it, though he never dared indulge in jewelry.
Inevitably, he’d speculated as to why. Who was this Leigh who was so rich and profligate that he not only didn’t bother to report the loss of his American Express card but continued to pay the bills for it that must arrive at his home each month? Then it came to him. This wasn’t a man at all but a woman kept by a man, a wife or girlfriend, whose AmEx accounts were paid for by husband or lover with no questions asked. Had she been afraid to tell him she’d lost the card? Perhaps been in some situation or place she shouldn’t have been in when the theft or loss happened? Or had she so many cards that she didn’t notice the disappearance of one of them?
He thought along these lines because underhand behavior, deceit, pulling fast ones, and getting something for nothing were practices dear to his heart. One day the card would be stopped, but that might be a long way off and meanwhile he was cashing in.
“I said, are you going to have the grilled vegetables or the smoked salmon? Darling, you’ve not been listening.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking-well, you know what I was thinking.”
Luckily, she didn’t. How was he going to get hold of Zillah? Phone her? It wouldn’t be hard to find her number. Call round? Once, years ago, while Zillah was pregnant with Eugenie and they were living in that dump near Queen’s Park station, they’d been asked round to drinks by this Melcombe-Smith at his place in Pimlico and they’d gone. Ghastly it had been and nearly turned him into a socialist. Jims, as he was called, might still be living there; it had been only six or seven years. Aghast, he realized he didn’t exactly know the age of his daughter. But he loved her, he knew that, she was his and he had to see her. “Listen to this,” he said. “Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drownded. Who was saved?”
