Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

by Ruth Rendell

  The trouble with the Maldives was that beautiful though the island was, it was really only the sort of place you went to with someone you were having a big, sexy, and romantic affair with and wanted to make love to all the time. Like Jims and Leonardo. For anyone else it was just a yawn. She read paperbacks she’d bought at the airport, she had a massage, and got her hair done three times, and because Jims, sustaining his role of devoted husband, took photographs of her, she took some of him and a few times included Leonardo. But it was a relief to be going home on Sunday.

  The newspapers that were brought round in midair were yesterday’s, thick Saturday papers stuffed with supplements. Zillah took the Mail while Jims opted for the Telegraph. She was reading a very interesting piece about fingernail extensions when a choking sound from Jims made her look round. He had gone dark red in the face, a change which made him a lot less attractive.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Read it for yourself.”

  He screwed up the newspaper, tossed the magazine at her, and got up, turning right down the aisle and making for where Leonardo was sitting in the back row.

  The article about her filled nearly three pages, the text liberally interspersed with photographs. At first Zillah concentrated on the pictures; they were so beautiful. The Telegraph had done her proud. What was Jims making a fuss about? The big glamour shot really did make her look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Zillah had been contemplating breast implants now she could afford it; she’d always felt herself lacking in this area, but this photograph showed her with a deep cleavage overflowing out of the bustier.

  The big headline didn’t present her in a light she much liked: GYPSY SCATTERBRAIN, it read, and underneath that, A New Breed of Tory Bride. Then she began to read the text, her heart gradually sinking and sweat breaking out all over her face and neck.

  Gypsy, scatterbrain, and firebrand, Carmen to the life, Zillah Melcombe-Smith belongs to the new kind of trophy wife politicians are increasingly acquiring. At 28, she looks like a model, talks like a teenager, and suffers, it seems, from various neuroses. Her dark good looks and fiery eyes support her assertion of having Romany blood, as so maybe do her wild statements. We had been in her Westminster flat (suitably close to the Houses of Parliament) for no more than ten minutes when she was threatening to sue us for libel. And why? Because we had dared question her astonishing left-wing beliefs, not to say double standards. Zillah bitterly opposes Tory opinion on homosexuality, that it isn’t equal to heterosexuality and is a matter of choice, yet calling someone gay is an insult she looks capable of dueling about.

  Odd when you remember that Zillah’s husband “Jims” Melcombe-Smith had attracted recent speculation as to his possible sexual orientation. All that, of course, has been proved wide of the mark by his marriage to the gorgeous Zillah. But if his past is no longer a mystery, hers may be. The new Mrs. Melcombe-Smith had apparently lived the first 27 years of her life in total seclusion and isolation in a Dorset village, an existence she made sound like being walled up in a convent. No job? No training? No former boyfriends? Apparently not. Strangely, Zillah forgot to mention a few small interruptions to this cloistered existence, her ex-husband, Jeffrey, and their two children, Eugenie, 7, and Jordan, 3. True, there were no children about when we visited on a sunny spring day. Where has Mrs. Melcombe-Smith hidden them? Or has their father custody? If so, this would be a highly exceptional decision on the part of the divorce court. Custody is only given to a father if the mother proves unfit to care for them, which high-spirited, handsome Zillah very obviously is not.

  Zillah read to the end, by now feeling sick. Natalie Reckman devoted two long paragraphs to describing her clothes and jewelry, suggesting that Jims ought to be able to afford real stones if she had to adorn herself in the daytime, not the kind of thing you could pick up from the souk in downtown Aqaba. Everyone wore high heels with trousers these days but not stilt heels with leggings. Reckman had a successful technique of insulting her subject by leveling at her hurtful abuse and immediately following it up with a sweetly gentle compliment. So she described Zillah’s outfit as more suitable for hanging about King’s Cross station, but added that even soliciting gear couldn’t spoil her lovely face, enviably slim figure, and mane of raven hair.

  By this time Zillah was crying. She threw the magazine on the floor and sobbed in the manner of her son, Jordan. The stewardess came up to her and asked if there was anything she could do. A glass of water? An aspirin? Zillah said she’d like a brandy.

  While she was waiting for it, Jims came back, his expression stormy. “A fine mess you’ve made of things.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I was doing my best.”

  “If that’s your best,” said Jims, “I wouldn’t care to see your worst.”

  The brandy made her feel a little better. Jims sat there, austerely drinking sparkling water. “It makes you look all kinds of a fool,” he continued, “and by extension, since you’re my wife, me as well. What on earth did you mean by threatening to sue for libel? Who do you think you are? Mohamed Fayed? Jeffrey Archer? How did she know your-er, Jerry’s name?”

  “I don’t know, Jims. I didn’t tell her.”

  “You must have. How did she know the children’s names?”

  “I really didn’t tell her. I swear I didn’t.”

  “What the devil am I going to say to the chief whip?”

  Jeff Leigh, alias Jock Lewis, once Jeffrey Leach, read the Telegraph Magazine by chance. Someone had left it on the bus he was taking back from reconnaissance in Westminster. He only looked at it because a line in white letters on the cover told him that one of his ex-fiancées was writing inside, Natalie Reckman Meets a Modern Carmen. He still had a soft spot for Natalie. She’d kept him without complaint or resentment for nearly a year, got engaged without expecting a ring, and parted from him with no hard feelings.

  She’d been tough on Zillah and serve her right. Why was she keeping the children’s existence dark? During the past week he’d twice been back to Abbey Gardens Mansions, but there had been no one there. The second rime the porter told him Mr. and Mrs. Melcombe-Smith were away but he had no idea where the children were. Jeff tried to press him but he must have become suspicious because he wouldn’t even say if there were any children living in apartment seven. Could Natalie be right when she implied Zillah had somehow disposed of them? Yet that hysterical letter she’d written him-he’d picked it up off the doormat in the nick of time before Fiona got there-said he could have access, see them when he wanted. The way, of course, to settle all this would be for him to write to Jims and simply tell him that Zillah’s husband was alive and well, and still married to her. Or even write to that old bat Nora Watling. But Jeff was reluctant to do this. He was aware of how much Jims disliked him, a feeling that was mutual, and this antipathy was shared by Zillah’s mother. They might simply disregard his letters. And if they didn’t and everything came out into the open, Fiona would very probably find out.

  For all his wedding plans, organizing the ceremony and reception, talking happily about the forthcoming event, Jeff hoped not to have to marry Fiona while still married to Zillah. He vaguely planned putting off the wedding, finding a reason for postponing it till next year. And although he wanted to know that his children were safe and, come to that, happy, he shied away from having them to live with him. That would be too extreme a step. If he exposed Zillah as a bigamist and Jims abandoned her, as he surely would, the powers-that-be-police? Social Services? the court?-might well take the children from her. The obvious place for them to go would be their father’s home. Especially with a broody future stepmother pining to look after them.

  Jeff remembered the ridiculous promise he’d made to Fiona, while light-headed on chardonnay, that he’d be a house husband, stay at home and look after their baby. That could mean looking after Eugenie and Jordan too. Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured his life, shopping in West End Lane with a baby in a buggy, holding Jordan’s hand, hastenin
g to be in time to fetch Eugenie from school. Jordan’s constant tears. Eugenie’s didactic speeches and general disapproval of everything. Getting their tea. Never going out in the evenings. Changing nappies. No, having the children wasn’t feasible. He would have to think of a reason for continuing to live with Fiona without marrying her. Was it too late to say he was Catholic and couldn’t be divorced? But Fiona thought he was divorced already…

  He got off the bus and walked slowly down Holmdale Road. In all his six-year-long quest to find a woman who was young yet rich, a home owner, out at work all day, good-looking, sexy and loving, willing without demur to keep him, he’d never come across one who satisfied the criteria as well as Fiona. Sometimes, especially when he’d had a drink, he even felt romantic about her. So how was he going to juggle the three slippery balls of keeping her in love with him, obtaining access to his children, and avoiding marrying her?

  He let himself into the house and found her watching Matthew Jarvey’s television show. He kissed her affectionately and asked after her parents, whom she’d been visiting while he was out. On the screen Matthew, looking like a famine victim, was gently interviewing a Weight Watchers woman who’d lost twenty pounds in six months.

  “Must be nuts, that guy,” said Jeff. “Why doesn’t he just get himself together and eat?”

  “Darling, I hope it doesn’t upset you, but did you know there’s a big piece in the Telegraph Magazine about your ex-wife?”

  “Really?” This would solve his dilemma of whether to tell her or not.

  “Mummy kept it for me. She thought it terribly naff-I mean, the people who write this stuff. What kind of a woman would be such a bitch?”

  For some obscure reason, this innocent attack on Natalie Reckman made Jeff angry, but he didn’t show it. “Have you got it, darling?”

  “You won’t let it upset you, will you?”

  Fiona handed him the magazine and returned to watching Matthew chatting to a man who failed to put on weight no matter how heartily he ate. On rereading, the bits about Zillah’s clothes and her souk jewelry restored his good temper and made him want to laugh. He assumed a gloomy expression. “I admit I’m anxious about my children,” he said quite truthfully when the program ended and Fiona switched off the set.

  “Perhaps you should consult a solicitor. Mine’s very good. A woman, of course, and young. High-powered, doing very well for herself financially. Shall I give her a ring?”

  Fleetingly, Jeff considered it. Not because he had any intention of involving the law-nothing could be more dangerous-but he liked the sound of this woman: young, high-powered, rich. Good-looking? Richer than Fiona? He could hardly ask. Regretfully, he said, “Better not, at this stage. I’ll fix up a meeting with Zillah first. What shall we do this evening?”

  “I thought we might stay in, have a quiet time at home.” She edged closer to him on the sofa.

  Zillah also had a quiet time at home. Jims had dumped the suitcases in her bedroom and gone off to spend the night with Leonardo. A note by the phone informed her that her mother had removed the children to Bournemouth, being unable to stay in London because Zillah’s father had had a heart attack and was in the hospital there. Zillah picked up the phone and, as soon as it was answered, got a mouthful of abuse from Nora Watling. How dare she go off without leaving the phone number of the hotel she and Jims were staying in? And never to call once from the Maldives! Had she no concern at all for her children?

  “How’s Dad?” asked Zillah in a small, wretched voice.

  “Better. He’s home. He might be dead for all you care. I may as well tell you here and now that I never in my life read anything so disgusting as that article in the Telegraph. I haven’t kept it for you. I burnt it. More or less calling you a prostitute! A Gypsy! When you know perfectly well your father and I come from good West Country stock for generations back. And that picture! As good as topless you were. And calling poor James a pervert!”

  Zillah held the receiver at a distance until the cackling ceased. “I don’t suppose you’ll feel like bringing the children back?”

  “You ought to be ashamed to ask. I’m worn out with nursing your father. And I don’t know what to do about Jordan’s crying. It’s not natural a child of three crying at the least little thing. You’ll have to fetch them yourself. Tomorrow. What do you have a car for? I’ll tell you something, Sarah, I didn’t know my luck all that time we barely had any contact. Since you went to London, I haven’t had a moment’s peace.”

  In Glebe Terrace, in Leonardo’s tiny but extremely smart Gothic house, he and Jims were reclining on the huge bed that filled Leonardo’s bedroom but for a few inches between it and the walls, listening to The Westminster Hour on the radio. They had eaten their dinner (gravlax, quails with quails’ eggs, biscotti, a bottle of pinot grigio) in that bed and made some inventive love afterward. Now they were relaxing in their favorite way, Leonardo having comforted Jims by telling him not to worry about the Telegraph. There was nothing offensive about him in it, rather the reverse. It was Zillah who got all the stick.

  A couple who had been spending the evening in a similar way were Fiona and Jeff. Their lovemaking had also been inventive and satisfying, but their dinner had consisted of papaya, cold chicken, and ice cream with a bottle of Chilean chardonnay. Fiona was now asleep while Jeff sat up in bed rereading Natalie Reckman’s piece. After a while he got up and, treading softly, went downstairs to find the address book he kept in an inside pocket of his black leather jacket. Fiona, as she’d no hesitation in telling him, was far too honorable ever to look in jacket pockets.

  There it was: Reckman, Natalie, 128 Lynette Road, Islington, N1. She might have moved, but it was worth a try. Why not give her a ring for old times’ sake?

  Chapter 13

  NEARLY A MONTH went by before Minty got to see Josephine’s wedding photographs and then she was expected to pay if she wanted a set of her own. She hadn’t the money to waste on things like that, but she carefully scrutinized the photos for a hint of Jock’s presence before handing them back. Auntie had had a book with amazing spirit photos in it, taken at seances. Sometimes the spirits looked solid like Jock and sometimes transparent, so that you could see the furniture through them. But there was nothing of either sort in Josephine’s pictures, only a lot of drunk people grinning and shrieking and hugging each other.

  For a week, while Ken and Josephine were on a deferred honeymoon in Ibiza, Minty had been in charge of Immacue on her own. She didn’t like it but she had no choice. Once, when she was in the back ironing and she heard a man’s voice, or rather, a man’s cough from the shop, she thought Jock had come back again, but it was Laf, his kind face looking doleful and apologetic.

  He was in uniform, an imposing figure, all six foot two of him and, it seemed to Minty, exaggerating, nearly six foot two round his middle. “Hallo, Minty, love. How are you?”

  Minty said she wasn’t so bad, thanks. Josephine would be back the next day.

  “It’s not Josephine I want. It’s you. To be honest with you, it’s no good me popping in next door with Sonovia the way she is. She’s got a nasty tongue when she likes, as you know. But I thought-well, me and Sonny are going to see The Cider House Rules tonight and I thought-well, you might like to come along. No, don’t say anything for a minute. I thought, maybe you’d meet us there and sort of come up to us and say hello or whatever and Sonn would-well, she wouldn’t make a song and dance of it in a public place, would she?”

  Minty shook her head. “She’d ignore me.”

  “No, she wouldn’t, love. Believe me, I know her. It’d be a way of putting things right between you. I mean, it’s not right the way things are, never being able to pop next door, me not allowed to pass on the papers, and all that. I reckon if you did that, she’d apologize and then maybe you would, and everything’d be grand again.”

  “I’ve nothing to apologize for. She ought to be glad I had her outfit cleaned. I’ve still got it, did you know that? And I’ve had it c
leaned again since I wore it. If she wants it back she can fetch it.”

  Laf tried more persuasion about the cinema visit but Minty only said, No, thanks. She’d been going to the pictures on her own lately, it was quieter and there was no one whispering at her. Because she had no quarrel with Laf she didn’t say anything about the popcorn. He went off, shaking his head and saying she hadn’t heard the last from him, he’d mend the rift if it was the last thing he did.

  Anyway, she didn’t want to see that film. She didn’t care for the sound of it. Jock had once bought her a half-pint of cider and she’d had to leave it, it tasted so sour. Jock. She’d seen him several times since the wedding, so she knew sticking a blunt knife in him hadn’t got rid of him. Again he came into the cemetery when she was putting tulips on Auntie’s grave, called her Polo, and said he preferred narcissi because they had a lovely scent. All the rest of that day, though she couldn’t see him, he kept whispering “Polo, Polo” at her. The next sighting was in her own house. Once more he was in that armchair. He got up when she came in and, lifting his shirt, showed her the bruise the dinner knife had made in his side, a purplish blue blotch. Minty went out of the room and shut the door on him, though she knew closed doors couldn’t keep him in just as they couldn’t keep him out. But when she went back again, he was gone. She’d been trembling so much she’d been walking through the rooms touching one color wood after another, but there weren’t enough different colors to do any good.