In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  Annie bit her lip. The offer seemed fair. But was it? And did she want to sell? Would Vanessa? As if he read some of her thoughts he said, ‘You might think because of my offer you could go elsewhere and get more, but I’ve thought it over. It’s a fair price. I doubt very much if you could do any better – no agent’s fees.’

  ‘I’ll certainly think about it,’ Annie said straightforwardly. ‘Vanessa’s away on holiday. I’ll have to talk it over with her. Can you give us a week or two to think?’

  ‘Agreed. But not too much longer than that.’

  ‘Another drink?’ Annie hoped he wouldn’t say yes.

  ‘No,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ve got to get back. There’s two hours’ work sitting waiting for me on my desk. I’ll be hoping to hear from you within two weeks, then, or earlier, perhaps.’

  Annie went back, mechanically, to getting the slogan off the restaurant window. She wasn’t sure what she thought about Abbott’s offer, or what Vanessa might think, faced with selling out to the father of the woman who was living with her husband. She went into George’s for a cup of tea. The café was crowded, the only seat free was opposite Madame Katarina, whose corner table at George’s seemed to belong to her as if by right. Even strangers to the café hesitated, then apologised sincerely when they needed to sit with her. Annie greeted her, then fell silent. Madame Katarina’s presence was undemanding; she felt as if she were sitting in a very quiet spot, like a field or on a river bank. The sounds of washing up, the distant sound of Melanie’s radio cassette player in the kitchen, the chat of the other customers seemed to dwindle. The silence lasted for about five minutes, while Annie thought about Abbott’s offer and wondered if she should make the effort to contact Vanessa in Portugal to tell her about it.

  Then Madame Katarina bent forward. She said in her slightly accented English, ‘My dear. I told you one day I’d warn you when I felt you needed my help. Sometimes I have feelings I can’t deny about people and situations. I have them now.’ She observed Annie’s doubtful look. ‘You are an educated woman. You will know the ancient world was full of signs, portents and omens. Men and women greater than us believed in them absolutely.’ She paused. ‘Like you, my brother was a student of history,’ she said.

  ‘Where is he now?’ asked Annie, although she had an idea what the reply might be. Madame Katarina must be seventy. Everything about her spoke of exile, from Germany, or perhaps Austria, in the thirties.

  Madame Katarina said merely, ‘He died young. Will you come and talk to me upstairs, in my flat? I could make you some coffee – better coffee than you sell here,’ she added reprovingly.

  ‘I agree the coffee could be better,’ Annie said. ‘It’s the cost.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Abigail came in, followed by Annabelle whom she was bullying more and more. Annie gave Abigail the keys to the restaurant so that they could start preparing for dinner. Then she followed Madame Katarina out of the café, through her front door and up the narrow stairs. She had never yet visited the flat, had not been invited, although Melanie was in and out all the time, it seemed, except, of course, when Madame Katarina was engaged with clients. So from Melanie Annie had heard accounts of the piano, on which Madame Katarina could be persuaded to play tunes from West Side Story and other pieces of old music, and the generally gloomy, but not spooky, as Melanie put it, atmosphere.

  There were two rooms off a narrow passageway which was papered with light, embossed wallpaper. Madame Katarina opened a door to one of the rooms, the other, Annie supposed, being the bedroom, and led her into a sitting room overlooking the market, where dark wallpaper, with large silver and black flowers, gave a shadowy atmosphere. The windows were masked by cotton net curtains with floral patterns. The curtains were old, made of blue-green tapestry. There was a heavy sideboard covered with ornaments – paperweights, porcelain figures, a pair of brass vases; a heavily carved black table covered with a cloth embroidered in gold, dark blues, reds and greens, stood in the middle of the room. At the back was a sofa upholstered in sombre, ornate material. Madame Katarina sat down in a chair by the blocked-in fireplace, in front of which stood an electric fire. She put a brass kettle on a gas ring beside it and asked Annie to sit down opposite her. She said, ‘I’ve been getting feelings of crisis. Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘The restaurant’s doing badly. I’ve just had an offer from a man who wants to buy it,’ Annie told her. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘No, no,’ Madame Katarina said. ‘I don’t think it’s that. It’s something in your own family.’

  ‘I’m having an affair with my cousin,’ Annie said, seeing no reason not to be candid. And these walls, she suspected, had heard more startling confessions than that.

  ‘Good.’ Madame Katarina’s face was expressionless. ‘That will be good for you – eventually.’ She took a canister of coffee and a curiously shaped pottery coffee pot from a cupboard beside her chair. She continued, in a practical voice, ‘Persist in spite of difficulties. Love is rare. But what I sense is more serious than that. I seem to see children, and some large buildings. And a death, not one of someone close to you – but someone important to you. Perhaps you could go into the kitchen and get milk and some cups for us.’ Which Annie did, at the end of the passageway in a small, neat, old-fashioned kitchen. When she returned, Madame Katarina had made coffee. It dripped through the pot slowly, each drip sounding very distinct. Annie could hear voices in the market below, even a clang as a saucepan fell on the floor of the snack bar, but the sounds seemed remote. Madame Katarina continued, ‘There’s a church also. Some kind of church. It’s important,’ she warned. ‘You must be very careful what you do from now on. Very careful.’

  ‘How?’ asked Annie. ‘It’s all very well – this – but frankly, Madame Katarina, it’s rather obscure – children, a death, buildings, a church – these things are common.’

  ‘Not a Christian church. There’s a woman with a star on her head, carrying a baby – who can that be, I wonder?’

  ‘A goddess?’ Annie suggested.

  ‘Possibly. She’s holding a horn of plenty, a cornucopia, in her other hand.’

  ‘I have had an offer for the Arcadia,’ Annie repeated.

  Madame Katarina shook her head. ‘Don’t do anything. These events are very close. Wait and see.’

  On the terrace outside the drawing room at Durham House, Lady Mary Fellows handed a drink to her companion, a short, bald man in a white, polo-necked jumper, and stared down the sweep of lawn, to the glitter of the lake just visible through the trees. The sun was going down, the lawn now half in shadow. Max Craig felt awkward. Summoned to Durham House by Nigel Fellows to give a consultation to Samco, by whom he was retained, the astrologer had arrived at eleven to find a message for him from Nigel that he’d been held up in town. Craig had lunched alone with Lady Mary – Jasmine was also in London. Another message from Nigel that he was further delayed meant tea and a walk with Lady Mary. The vixen, now released, gambolled up to them across a field, flashed away again through a hedge.

  By six Nigel and Jasmine had still not turned up. Yet another message arrived – this time Nigel and Jasmine had broken down on the road. They would be at Durham House in time for dinner at eight. Lady Mary had held up dinner for half an hour and in the end she and Craig, alone at the big dining table, had again eaten another meal together. Now it was nine-thirty, and Craig was detained, at this stage, more by Lady Mary’s well-disguised but detectable anxiety than by the prospect of Nigel’s arrival. At any rate the long day’s waiting had let them know each other better.

  Max Craig was a famous clairvoyant. Prominent clients, film stars, rock stars, notables of all kinds, as well as commercial clients such as Samco trusted him to guide them. Privy to so many famous secrets, believed to be in touch with mysterious forces, he was not unaware that even the most sceptical and least superstitious people regarded him with some awe, much as they might attempt to conceal it. As people will eventually reveal their
health worries to a doctor they meet socially, talk to an architect about their building problems, or mention the state of their mouths to a dentist, so, Craig knew, after a day of chatting, discussing the siting of a tree, looking at the pictures in the house, that Lady Mary, reassured by his calm and sensitivity, was beginning to wonder if he could help her, although she was too polite to ask directly. Craig, who had cast the company horoscope the day before and seen in it some extraordinary features, said gently, ‘Forgive me, Lady Mary, if I’m being too blunt, but your son – Simon – in my opinion, he’s alive.’

  Lady Mary looked at him and did not respond.

  ‘I don’t expect you believe in my mumbo-jumbo,’ he said. ‘But, of course, I do. Simon isn’t dead, I’m convinced.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Lady Mary. ‘I feel sure I’d know.’

  Craig nodded. He refrained from telling Lady Mary what else he knew, or thought he knew.

  Foxwell Market, under a July sun, looked, if anything, slightly worse than it did at other times, the bright sunlight remorselessly revealing littered streets and the tawdry state of the stalls, with their heavy load of vegetables, cheap shoes, underwear, tablecloths and clothing as the dim autumnal or winter light did not. The market certainly smelt worse in summer. The odours of fish from the fish stall, meat from the butcher’s shop in the arcade, the smells of frying, curry-cooking and traffic fumes mingled and blended, causing small children to make faces when led by their mothers from the High Street into the market. In contrast, behind the counter at George’s, Vanessa Doyle, back from Portugal, glowed, her skin gold, her hair frizzing out, bleached by the sun.

  Arnold said sourly from his seat in a corner, ‘Your holiday’s done you good, Vanessa. You in love or something?’ He sipped his tea.

  ‘Yes,’ declared Vanessa. ‘My heart’s singing. Congratulate me.’

  ‘I’ll wait and see for a month or two before I do that,’ he told her. ‘Holiday romance, was it?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Vanessa replied. ‘And what can I get you, gentlemen,’ she added, as two workmen came up to the counter. ‘Oh,’ she said, recognising one of the figures in jeans and T-shirt and heavy boots, ‘Mr Pickering. What a surprise!’ She gave him a cheeky smile.

  ‘I thought it might be,’ he said, intending to convey menace.

  Vanessa was unimpressed. ‘Hear you’re working for Mr Doyle these days. Don’t worry – we haven’t given you away to Mrs Pickering. I hear she’s managing to get by, luckily, no thanks to anybody here. I wonder if Mr Doyle actually employs anybody who supports their wife and family? I suppose not, really. Perhaps it’s a condition he makes before he gives out the jobs. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’d better be careful what you say,’ said Pickering steadily. ‘I don’t think Mr Doyle would like to hear you talking like that.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m bothered about what Mr Doyle thinks,’ Vanessa said recklessly.

  ‘I’ll tell him that,’ Pickering said threateningly.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Vanessa. ‘Now – what’s it to be? Teas, coffees, sandwiches? I’m ready to go. Just say the word.’

  ‘The word is, what about my Melanie? I hear she’s working all hours in this café. She’s only thirteen, you know.’

  ‘Fourteen, Mr Pickering. She had her birthday a fortnight ago. You must have forgotten. You never sent a card, anyway.’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ he continued. ‘You’re exploiting her and that’s all there is to be said about it.’

  ‘Holiday job,’ said Vanessa. ‘She’s happy. Her mother’s happy. Now just what are you suggesting?’

  ‘This man’s a witness to the fact that you’ve got my under-age teenage daughter here, you’re exploiting her labour. And maybe worse. I want her returned to her mother’s protection forthwith. Is that clear enough? I’ve got a solicitor.’

  At this point Melanie came into the café with her friend Viv. She rapidly took in her father’s presence, grabbed Viv by the arm and turned her round when, following Vanessa’s eyes, Pickering spotted her.

  ‘Melanie!’ he shouted. ‘You stop here!’ Melanie halted.

  ‘What are you doing here, Dad?’ she asked meekly.

  ‘Looking to your welfare, that’s what I’m doing,’ Pickering said in an aggressive tone.

  ‘Well, I’m all right, so you needn’t worry,’ Melanie said in the same placatory tone.

  ‘You,’ he said, pointing at her, ‘had better get back up north where you belong. And you,’ he said, turning on Vanessa, ‘had best get my daughter on a train pretty soon, or you’ll regret it.’

  Melanie beckoned her friend into a corner, where she sat down, watching her father fearfully.

  ‘I can’t see why you want this, Mr Pickering,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘Maybe I could be persuaded,’ Pickering suggested.

  ‘Oh, don’t give me any of that,’ Vanessa said. ‘Just get out of here.’ She appealed to the other man, ‘There’s a man who’d literally sell his own daughter. What do you think of that? Nice, isn’t it?’

  Pickering said nastily, ‘You’ll keep a decent tongue in your head, young lady.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ responded Vanessa. ‘You may be very good at intimidating your family, but you can’t do it to me. Now, talk to your daughter if you want to in a reasonable way. That is, if you know how. But don’t come in here threatening and blustering, because I think I know what kind of a man you are, Mr Pickering. I don’t know what kind of a story he’d told you,’ she said to Pickering’s companion, ‘but I doubt if it’s all true. You can see for yourself this girl is all right. There’s nothing wrong with her at all. She goes to school every day. Her schoolwork’s improving. She just works here in the holidays and she gets paid for what she does. Her mother knows all about it and she’s perfectly satisfied. If I was you, I wouldn’t get involved.’

  Baffled and embarrassed, the other man did not reply. Pickering said with dignity, ‘You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, Mrs Doyle.’ He stopped near where Melanie was sitting, head bowed, hands in her lap, gave her a hard stare and said, ‘As for you, madam. As for you—’ and left without completing the threat. His companion, still standing at the counter, followed him after a pause.

  ‘Brute,’ Vanessa said after him. ‘He’s a brute – that’s what he is.’ Turning to Melanie, she said, ‘Don’t you worry, darling, it’s just a try-on. He can’t do nothing.’

  ‘He does seem to be her father,’ Arnold said repressively from the corner.

  ‘It’s not always who you are, it’s what you are,’ retorted Vanessa. ‘You could be my father, technically, for all I know.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Arnold.

  A tall fair man in a grey suit and trainers came round the door somewhat awkwardly with a bunch of flowers. Vanessa glowed. ‘Ben!’ she called out.

  He marched across, smiling, watched by the workmen, Arnold, Melanie and Viv, and gave her the flowers.

  Vanessa was grinning. ‘Is that her boyfriend?’ asked Viv in an undertone.

  ‘This is Ben Gathercole,’ Vanessa announced to Melanie.

  ‘How do,’ Melanie said dourly.

  ‘I’ve heard about you,’ he said. He sat down next to her.

  Melanie didn’t like this. She shifted in her seat and responded, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ in a discouraging voice.

  ‘Can you take over, Mels, while we go for a pub lunch?’ Vanessa asked quickly. ‘Half an hour. Then can you pick up Alec and Joanne and take them to the park?’

  ‘We’ll take them down the War Museum,’ said Viv. ‘My brother wants to go.’

  ‘All right,’ Vanessa said. She picked up her bag, gave them some money and went off with Ben Gathercole.

  Viv went behind the counter, pulling a face at Melanie. She made a noise. ‘Wehay – well, he’s not bad, anyway. A bit old. Got a suit on.’ Melanie said nothing.

  Two middle-aged women came in, one a fruit stall holder. ‘Two teas, one e
gg and cress sandwich, one Danish pastry,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll bring it over,’ Melanie said.

  ‘Something happened?’ the woman asked.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, that reporter—’

  ‘What – him? With Vanessa?’ Viv said quickly.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Nothing’s happened I know of,’ Melanie said. ‘Here’s your teas.’

  ‘What’s-his-name, Ben Gathercole,’ Viv went on. ‘He’s a reporter?’

  ‘He come down here a few months ago interviewing people when they put the rents up round the market. Brought a photographer.’

  ‘What? A reporter like the Sun, or the Guardian?’

  ‘Local paper. Kenton Post,’ said the woman.

  ‘Nothing the matter with that,’ Viv said.

  But Melanie’s life in London depended on there being a place for her, and no changes. She was worried. ‘You think they’re going to send you back, don’t you, if they get boyfriends?’ Viv deduced. ‘That’s why you don’t like that Tom. Look – they need you. They can’t manage without you. Men are no good with caffs, or kids.’ But Melanie, upset by her father’s visit and this new development, still looked disconsolate.