The Vital Chain

by Sally Spencer

  ‘You won’t get any padded bills from me,’ his serious expression would tell his clients. ‘I won’t charge you for an expensive repair when a cheap one would do just as well. What you’ll get is exactly what you pay for.’

  Grandfather took out the heavy brass pocket watch which was the only thing his father had been in a position to leave him, and squinted at the face. ‘We’ll take a 20 minute break,’ he said. ‘There’ll be coffee and biscuits on offer in the entertainment suite.’

  ****

  The entertainment suite located next to the boardroom, and our gatherings in it, were the part of these meetings I most disliked because the simple fact was that although I felt obliged to talk to my uncle and cousin, we really had very little to say to each other. On this occasion, however, Philip seemed eager to talk and steered me away from the rest of the group.

  ‘How’s the publishing business going?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s going quite well,’ I told him.

  Philip nodded as though, even if he had asked the question, he wasn’t very interested in the answer.

  ‘Saw that writer – what's his name? Geoffrey Caldwell – on the box the other night.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘He was talking about his life. He said he’d had his manuscript turned down by half a dozen publishers before he sent it to Cormorant. Were you the one who spotted it?’

  ‘As I matter of fact I was,’ I admitted.

  ‘That was pretty smart of you.’

  I smiled, self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s a very good book,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t so much that I was smart as that the other publishers were stupid.’

  ‘People on the box are always mentioning you,’ Philip said, with an edge of bitterness creeping into his voice. ‘Always saying how you gave them their start.’

  ‘I’ve been lucky,’ I said. ‘Most publishers have to show the sort of profit their shareholders demand, but Grandfather made it plain from the start that wasn’t necessary with CP. So I can take chances other publishers daren’t. And sometimes they pay off.’

  It was clear from the expression on my cousin’s face that he was no longer listening to me. ‘Four years,’ he said, almost to himself.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’ve had that company four years, haven’t you?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘And here I am, a couple of months older than you, still working for my father.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve got more influence with Grandfather than the rest of us,’ he said.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t understand the reason, but you have. That’s why I want you to do me a favour.’

  ‘What kind of favour?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘Talk to him. Persuade him it’s time I had a company of my own, too.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I promised, ‘but I’m not sure it will do any good. Grandfather’s always been very much his own man. Besides, it’s a question of waiting for a suitable opportunity to arise. This new company’s ideal for John, and that’s why Grandfather has put him in charge of it. And when he sees one which is right for you, you can be certain he’ll buy it. All you have to do is be a little patient.’

  I’d been trying to be diplomatic, but I’d obviously failed. Philip’s face clouded over, and it was clear that he was having great difficulty containing his rage.

  ‘Maybe I should have a nervous breakdown,’ he said bitterly. ‘Yes, that’s it. Have a nervous breakdown tomorrow, and Grandfather will give me my own company the day after.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I protested, starting to get angry myself. ‘I was in therapy for two long, painful years.’

  But I was wasting my breath. Having delivered his barb, Philip turned on his heel and marched back into the boardroom.

  ****

  I sat in my passenger seat of John’s Audi, and watched the familiar countryside – which no longer seemed to be a part of me – flash by.

  ‘Are you pleased with your promotion?’ I asked my brother.

  John shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Philip would kill for his own company.’

  ‘I’m not Philip,’ John said.

  ‘And thank God for that,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think I could handle someone like him for a brother.’

  ‘So how are things in Oxford?’ John asked me.

  I started telling him about the business in general, then began to focus in on what was becoming a growing obsession – THE BOOK.

  ‘A new chunk of it turns up roughly every six months,’ I told him. ‘Always in an exercise book. Always written in pencil. I must have 40,000 words of it by now – he’s reached the point where he’s in prison for burglary – but I still have no more idea who he is than I had when received the first extract.’

  ‘Hmm,’ my brother said, changing gear as we approached a bend in the road.

  ‘Of course, the most exciting part was when he was an amateur vampire in Transylvania,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that must be interesting,’ John commented.

  ‘You’re not really listening to me, are you?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘What? Of course I am?’

  ‘Then what was the last thing I said?’

  ‘You … uh … keep getting exercise books full of brilliant stuff dropped through your letterbox.’

  ‘That’s what I said about five minutes ago,’ I agreed. ‘But what have I been talking about since then?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rob,’ my brother said. ‘You’re right – I wasn’t listening. I’ve got something on my mind.’

  ‘I rather thought you had. Is it the new job?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Well, out with it, then.’

  ‘I’ve met a girl,’ John said in a rush, and looking across at him, I could almost have sworn he was blushing.

  ‘A girl!’ I repeated, trying to hide my smile – because I really did find it funny.

  I assumed, of course, that in the time since I’d left Cheshire, he had been out with women, but now we had come down to actual cases, I found some difficulty in picturing it. The problem was that John, in my mind, was in some ways still a teenager and I couldn’t help associating him with all the fumbling and sweating which most teenagers go through on their first few dates.

  ‘Her name’s Lydia,’ John said, sounding slightly aggrieved, as if he could read my thoughts.

  ‘Oh yes?’ I replied neutrally, not wanting to cut him off, yet not wishing to be intrusive either.

  But I needn’t have worried about him falling silent. The floodgates had opened, and everything which had been on his mind came spilling out.

  ‘She’s 24,’ he told me. ‘I met her at the village fête last summer. We talked for a while. She … I didn’t think she was really interested in me. I mean, I’ve got a pretty ham-fisted approach to girls. But she asked me for my telephone number, and a couple of weeks later she rang me. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other since then.’

  This time, however much I tried, I could not hold back a grin.

  ‘And have you taken her home for Sunday tea, so she could meet Mum and Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ John confessed. ‘I will, when the time’s right. But I thought you might like to meet her first.’

  I wondered if my suffering, and my modest success, had automatically promoted me – in his mind – to the role of older brother. But it wasn’t that. Even when we were kids, he’d looked to me for guidance rather than the other way around.

  ‘I’d be honoured to meet her,’ I told him. ‘When can we arrange it?’

  John released an involuntary sigh of relief.

  ‘I’ve booked a table at a country pub in Lower Peover for tonight,’ he said. ‘Just the three of us unless … unless there’s somebody you’d like to take.’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying not to sound too sad, ‘there’s nobody who I’d like to take. But won’t it be a litt
le awkward if—’

  ‘Not at all, Rob. Not at all,’ John said, as much to reassure himself as to answer me.

  ****

  The pub-restaurant John had selected was just off the main road, and since my brother had to go into Warrington to pick Lydia up, it was agreed that we should travel separately. Though he left home before me, I arrived first, and after parking my Ford Mondeo on the asphalt behind the pub, I went into the bar and ordered a pint.

  It was a pleasant place in which to have a drink, full of old oak beams made black with age, and copper bedpans which could almost be mistaken for the genuine article.

  As I sipped my pint I found myself thinking about my encounter with my cousin Philip. He wanted his own company badly enough to kill for it, I’d said, and though that had clearly been an exaggeration, I didn’t think I had ever seen a man with as much frustrated ambition as Philip seemed to have. I tried to feel sorry for him, but found that I couldn’t. Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but the enmity which had existed between us as children had not been lessened one jot by our separation.

  Turning my mind to more pleasant subjects, I began to think about my brother John. It was comical the way he had gone about this courtship business, I told myself. He’d been seeing the woman for nearly a year, yet he’d kept it a secret from our parents.

  Even tonight he had told them some cock and bull story about how him and I going out for a drink together to talk over old times. What was he afraid of? That our mother and father would disapprove? He was 28 years old and managing director of his own company for God’s sake!

  The main door of the pub swung open, John entered, and I got my first look at the woman he had been meeting clandestinely since the summer fête. She was not what I’d expected. For openers she looked considerably younger than the 24 John had told me she was. And whereas I’d been half expecting some busty blonde, she was quite the opposite – a slim brunette.

  John saw me, and waved like a man who needed someone to throw him a life belt. Then he pointed me out to the woman, took her by the arm, and led her towards me.

  As she got closer, I was able to get a better look at Lydia. She had short hair, which was styled in what might have been called a pixie cut. Her eyes were green, her nose slim, and her mouth, I thought , perhaps a little tight. She was wearing a tailored suit which clung to her boyish figure.

  I don’t want to make her sound unattractive – I noticed that several men in the room were following her with their eyes – but she was certainly not a woman who would ever have attracted me.

  They reached the bar, and John slapped me warmly on the shoulder.

  ‘Rob, this is Lydia,’ he said, in a voice which sounded over-jovial. ‘Lydia, this is Robbie.’

  We shook hands. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘The feeling’s mutual,’ Lydia replied.

  There was something unnatural about the whole situation, and from experience I knew where that feeling came from. We were sizing each other up, accepting that we could be either allies or enemies, and not sure yet which it was going to be. I’d got exactly the same feeling when I’d first met Jill’s father.

  ‘Have you checked that they’ve reserved us a table?’ John asked with just a hint of panic in his voice.

  ‘It was the first thing I did when I came in,’ I assured him.

  ‘Good.’ My brother wiped his hand across his forehead. ‘Then let’s go and eat, shall we?’

  We walked through to the dining room and the waiter showed us to our table. By contrivance or accident, I’m not sure which, I found myself sitting directly opposite Lydia.

  ‘John’s told me so much about you,’ she said.

  So much of what about me? I wondered.

  Had he told her that I’d lost the only woman I was ever going to love? Had he mentioned the fact I’d had a mental collapse, and been institutionalised for over two years?

  ‘John talks too much,’ I said.

  Lydia giggled. ‘I know he does. I’m always telling him that. But he’s so proud of having a famous brother that sometimes he just can’t help himself.’

  I was still not quite confident enough about my present situation to feel secure about my past, and I breathed a secret sigh of relief that John seemed to have given his girlfriend an edited version of it.

  ‘So you met at our village fête,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lydia agreed.

  ‘And what happy chance took you from the metropolis of Warrington to a rustic little village like ours?’ I asked, thinking even as I spoke the words how patronising I sounded.

  But if Lydia noticed my tone, she gave no indication of it.

  ‘I suppose it was a feeling of nostalgia that took me there,’ she said. ‘I was brought up in a small village in Lancashire, and the fête always used to be one of the high spots of our year.’

  ‘Do your parents still live in Lancashire?’ I asked.

  ‘What is this?’ my brother asked in a mock-light, semi-concerned tone. ‘An interrogation?’

  ‘If I’ve said something wrong—’ I began.

  ‘No,’ Lydia interrupted. ‘No, you haven’t.’ She reached across the table and touched my brother’s hand. ‘John’s just trying to protect me, that’s all. He’s got this idea of me as a delicate flower, but I’m tough as old boots really.’

  ‘Still, if you’d rather not talk about it …’ I said.

  ‘I don’t mind. Really! My parents are dead.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘No need to be. They died when I was very young. It was a plane crash – their first holiday alone together for years. I was brought up by a maiden aunt. Then, when I was 18, she died too. And I moved to Warrington to work in a building society.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, unable to think of a more appropriate response. ‘And do you like your work?’

  ‘Hate it,’ Lydia said matter-of-factly. ‘But we all have to do something to put food on the table, don’t we. Actually, if my father had managed his money better, I wouldn’t have had to work at all. He was quite well off when he got married – and Mother brought something into the marriage, too – but it seems that he had this terrible weakness for the horses.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, you were asking me about the fête.’

  ‘So I was,’ I agreed.

  ‘I hadn’t been there for more than a few minutes when I saw John,’ Lydia said. She looked up affectionately at my brother’s square jaw. ‘Saw him – and knew that he was the man for me.’

  John laughed uncomfortably. ‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ he said. ‘Once I’d seen you, you didn’t have a chance.’

  Lydia squeezed his arm. ‘If that’s what you want to believe, you go right on believing it,’ she said. She winked at me. ‘It’s always wise to leave your man with a few of his illusions, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it must be,’ I agreed. ‘Shall we order the wine?’

  ****

  Later that night, lying in the same bed I had occupied as a child, I did my best to put the evening in perspective.

  My brother, it seemed to me, was absolutely besotted with Lydia – but how did she feel about him?

  I wasn’t sure. She certainly acted as if she were in love with him, but was it any more than an act?

  Wasn’t there a danger, I asked myself, that I might fall into the same trap as Martin Barnes – the man who should have become my father-in-law – had? He had hated me initially, and it was only later – when it became obvious to him that I really did love Jill – that his attitude started to change. Wasn’t it possible, therefore, that because I was so fond of my brother, I would automatically become suspicious of any woman he became attached to? And wasn’t there a further danger that I was comparing Lydia to Jill – a comparison in which any woman in the world would lose out?

  I heard the church clock strike two, and realised that though it seemed only minutes since I’d got into bed, I must have been lying there for w
ell over an hour – which could only mean that the problem of my brother had been bothering me more than I was prepared to admit.

  Why was I worrying? I asked myself.

  The relationship might well be over in six months.

  It could be over tomorrow.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if John decided to marry the girl?

  Well, for all I knew, she might turn out to be an excellent wife. And if she didn’t, it wasn’t as if we were still living in the 1950s – divorces were both quick and clean now.

  Of course, a failed marriage would hurt a sensitive soul like John, but then, I thought with an uncharacteristic edge of brutality in my mind, we all have to take knocks in this life.

  The old church clock stuck three, and I finally began to feel sleepy. I plumped up my pillows and settled down for the night.

  John wouldn’t marry her, I told myself as I closed my eyes. Though for very different reasons – he was as much a confirmed bachelor as I was.

  I was still half-telling myself that as I drove up North for his wedding 12 months later.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was just after nine o’clock in the morning when Owen Flint dropped in on the village store for his morning’s ration of sugared sweets. After some thought, he chose a bag of Nuttall’s Mintoes (with two tubes of Spangles as back-up), then set off up the High Street in the general direction of my brother’s house.

  As he walked, he turned his mind to thoughts of Paul Taylor. There might be a perfectly simple explanation for the executive assistant’s disappearance, he told himself, but he distrusted coincidences, which was why he’d already put out feelers to every police force in the country.

  At the top of the hill, he turned left along Church Street, following it until he reached the dirt track which went by the name of Smithy Road. If he hadn’t been told that my brother’s house was half-way down the track, facing the bowling green, he’d never have guessed that was where John lived because he’d formed the impression of him as a diffident man, and the last thing this house suggested was diffidence. It was not quite as big as Grandfather’s house, he thought, but it was close enough – and that made it the second largest house in the village.