A Place in the Country (17 page)

She looked, puzzled, at her mother, who told her that when people were disturbed, as James was, they did strange things, and she just wished, for her granddaughter's sake he had made a different choice. Then quite suddenly she began to cry.

Cassandra Meriton almost never cried. She had complained about only two things in her life: being short in stature and being burdened with a name like Cassandra. She was five-two and always wore heels, kitten heels maybe but still they gave her a lift and, she believed, made her walk taller. She had blond hair that was frizzing in Singapore's humidity, cut in a short bob, blue eyes, and a pert nose. She always said if one more person called her “cute” she was going to sock them. “In my soul,” she complained, “I am definitely not ‘cute.'” And nor was she. She had a BA in literature from Oxford and a PhD she'd earned, when her husband was traveling so much and she had time on her hands.

“I couldn't just sit there and watch TV,” she told her family. “I was never a lady who lunched.” Yet for Caroline, she had always been a proper mom, cooking, keeping their world together. Her family and her dozens of friends adored her.

As did her husband, Henry Meriton. Henry was certain everyone thought he was the backbone of the family, but really it was his wife. He told them that, at every opportunity, until Cassie made him stop, they were all getting sick of hearing about how wonderful she was. Now, he was feeling desperately sorry for his daughter, and for his granddaughter.

They were to have dinner in the Grill at eight, so Caroline showed her parents to their room, then went back to check on her own daughter, who thank God, was sleeping.

Four hours to go 'til eight o'clock,
she thought.
Four hours of peace.
She called Maggie, told her about dinner and arranged to meet. Then she took a long, hot bath, doused in some prettily scented oil. When she was soaked, and shriveled, she got out and went and washed her hair in the shower, then turned on the cold to wake herself up. She put on the soft white bathrobe and went to unpack. She hung up the black linen dress she planned to wear the next day. It was a dress from her past. She remembered wearing it with pearls and red lipstick, to dinner with James right here, in Singapore. She remembered how he had liked her in it.

She called reception and asked to be woken at seven—she never trusted in-room alarms—then lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

*   *   *

Mark was waiting
for them at eight. Everybody showed up on time though the two girls were still sleepy, and everyone was weary from travel. They were in the Grill, which was next to the bar where Caroline had first met James.

“Remember the story?” she asked Issy.

“Stories,” Issy corrected her. “I never heard the same one twice.”

Then they went to the table and drank a little wine. Everyone managed to eat a little and made conversation and nobody spoke about tomorrow.

*   *   *

The funeral morning
was sunny, but purplish clouds hung on the horizon. Caroline knew it would rain; it rained every day in Singapore, you couldn't go anywhere without your umbrella. You simply had to wait for the sun to come out again, which it always did.

A metaphor for life, Caroline thought, eyeing herself in the mirror in the black linen dress. Her legs looked very pale, and despite the heat, she had to wear stockings. She put on the black suede heels that were at least five years old; in fact, she had bought them right here in the Orchard Road shopping mall, where she'd also bought the dress.

Maggie and Jesus were waiting in the sitting room, Jesus wore a dark suit and Maggie was in a black skirt and jacket she'd picked up in Oxford just before they left. Sam stood next to them, solemn-faced, her blond hair tied neatly back.

Caroline had not wanted Issy to wear black. She knew James would not have wanted it either, so they had decided on a pink cotton skirt and a white shirt. Issy's skinny legs were still streaked with the golden-tan-in-a-tube bought from Boots, not so long ago. She was very quiet. Caroline thought she looked desperate, and forlorn, holding everything back.

Cassandra was wearing black and Henry had on a suit he hadn't worn since he retired and that was now too tight. Of course he also wore the Panama.

They went down to the lobby where Mark was waiting for them, and were driven to the church. Caroline took Issy's hand as they walked down the aisle. James's coffin rested in front of the altar. Issy's hand gripped hers. An organist began to play “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.” The sound echoed from the rafters. Surprised, she saw that quite a few people had come to pay their respects.

She also saw Mark checking with the security guards he'd told her he'd hired in case Gayle Lee Chen decided to put in an appearance. If she did they had instructions to remove her from the premises, forcibly if necessary.

Caroline took her seat in the front row. She sat, staring at James's coffin, wondering why he had done it, and wishing she could turn back the clock and start all over again. The two of them in the bar of the Raffles Hotel, where it had all begun.

*   *   *

Issy sat
between her mother and her grandmother, staring at the box that contained what remained of her father. The scent of the flowers covering it filled the air with sweetness. She understood her father was not there. That he would never be there again. She did not cry, though.

The service seemed to go on forever; she stood for hymns and knelt for the prayers. Then after the final blessing, everyone just got up and walked out, leaving her father there alone. They stood saying hello to people who gave Issy a sad smile and said how she had grown. And then it was over.

“I still believe he was murdered,” she whispered to Sam as they walked to the car. But Sam said no use her even thinking about that, there was nothing she could do about it.

Issy knew she was right. She was only a fifteen-year-old girl, after all.

As she got into their car, from the corner of her eye she spotted Gayle Lee Chen stepping out of her limo, half a block away. She was wearing a white cheongsam. Issy knew white was the Chinese color of mourning. She hated her.

Mark saw her too and got everyone quickly into the car, then sent the driver on his way.

Issy looked out the back window and saw Gayle Lee walking into the church and felt a moment of triumph. She smiled. This time she was too late.

 

chapter 40

Cassandra Meriton
had been through all the events and struggles and pleasures of bringing up a daughter, and there had been times, when things had been particularly difficult, she had asked herself—and her husband—if it was friggin' worth it. Of course it was. She had simply gone through the same frustrations and feelings of helplessness as everybody else who had ever brought up a daughter. Or a son, Cassie supposed, but then sons were supposed to be easier. Fathers took care of that, took them to football games, told them the “facts of life” as it used to be called in her day and to always use a condom, get a good job, marry a nice girl, buy a house and have two babies who their grandparents could spoil and pick up and leave whenever they wanted. After all, they had earned that right.

Now, though, Cassie was worried about her granddaughter. She saw the desolation in her eyes, and heard from Caroline that Issy had the strange belief her father had been murdered. She could understand why she would not want to believe James had killed himself. The very concept was alien. Fathers did not do that. Now, though, she knew Issy was lost in a sea of adult emotions that were in direct conflict with her teenage self. All she should be thinking about was school and clothes, school and boys, school and dancing, flirting and having fun. While working hard, of course, because sixth form loomed, and then, hopefully, university. Right now she wasn't thinking of anything beyond getting through the next day, and then the next. Her granddaughter was in despair. She needed help, normality, a change. In fact Cassie knew exactly what she needed. Her grandparents.

They were having dinner and Cassie squeezed Issy's hand under the table. She said, “Why don't you come to France with us for a while? You can help Grandpa pick tomatoes; he grows the best tiny little ones and we must get them before the birds do. Then we have to clean up all the figs that fall off the trees, too many to even be bothered with making jam and all that. Your room is ready, it's small but pretty and we finally got rid of the old Mickey duvet you've had since you were little and got a real ‘girl' one.”

“I'll bet it's white.” Issy smiled.

“Do not mistake me for your mother,” Cassie said. “It's black.”

“Wow!” Issy said, astonished.

“Suede,” Cassandra added.

“Jesus!” she was even more astonished. “Really?
Black suede
?”

“Well, it's probably called suedette, but it looks like suede. I knew you would love it, soon as I saw it.”

“Wow,” Issy said again, intrigued. “I don't know about the tomatoes, though.”

Cassandra squeezed her hand again and whispered, conspiratorially, “Forgot the tomatoes, we'll go shopping in Bordeaux, get you some cute French clothes.”
And I'll also scrounge round my friends for some boys,
she was thinking.

Issy looked at her mother. “Could I go, Mom?”

“If you would like to.”

“Sammy's invited too,” Cassandra said, but Maggie said Sam had to get back to school.

Looking at her granddaughter, Cassie saw that for all of a few minutes she had forgotten the reason she was in Singapore, and she was glad. She squeezed her hand again. “It will be okay,” she said softly. “It may take time, darling girl, but you will get past this. I promise.”

Issy looked longingly at her. “How do you know that?”

Her eyes were so like her father's, it took Cassie's breath away. “Old age and experience, child,” she said. “Isn't that what all grandparents say?”

 

Part Two

 

chapter 41

A few days later,
back in Oxfordshire, at the Star & Plough, Caroline was tidying up her kitchen, restacking pots and pans the way she liked them, and not the way Sarah and her band of helpers had while she was gone, mixing up the sizes so she had to search for the cast-iron frying pan she needed. Finally she found it stashed under a load of others.

“Sorry,” Sarah muttered. For once, she had left Little Billy home with a sitter and now she was chopping Vidalia onions that Caroline needed caramelized to serve on top of the flat-iron steak which was to be the night's “special.” It wasn't the onions that were making Sarah cry though. Quite suddenly, she stopped chopping and put her head down and began to sob.

Caroline heard her. She quickly got a clean kitchen towel and soaked it under the cold tap and gave it to Sarah. “Hold this over your eyes,” she said, “or you're going to look like a snowman, with your white skin.”

“Pokey little red eyes.” Sarah managed a small laugh that turned into a hiccup.

Caroline pulled out a chair for her and went and sat next to her. Blind Brenda was sprawled on the table in front of them. Of course it was unhygienic, but what the hell. “Man trouble?” she asked.

“Not that kind of man. It's my landlord.” Sarah sniffed, holding the wet cloth over her eyes. “It's nothing really, not compared with what you just went through,” she added. “It's just that, well, he's chucking me out. I'm only on a month-to-month and he says he's got somebody else, and maybe they'll buy the place.”

“Weekenders,” Caroline said. There were plenty of those around in the Cotswolds, buying up cottages to escape the city's rat race.

“So, what will you do?”

“I've no option. I'll just have to go back to my mom.”

Caroline remembered she'd said the mum was not happy about her having a baby “without the benefit.” “Doesn't sound like the perfect answer to me,” she said. Then she suddenly had a brain wave, the kind she often seemed to be having when she thought about the future.

“There's a cottage out at my barn,” she said. “It's small,
really
small, but it's all been redone, new plumbing, electricity—the works. Let me tell you what
I
think, Sarah. I am going to need help in my kitchen. Why not you? You could work for me and you and Little Billy could have the cottage, rent free. I'll still pay you the going rate.”

Sarah lowered the towel, and looked at her. “I can't,” she said. “I can't just leave Maggie in the lurch, first you leaving, then me.”

“I'll never leave Maggie and Jesus in the lurch,” Caroline said. “I'm not opening until I've got a good replacement here in the pub. Meanwhile, you and Little Billy will have a roof over your heads. You can move in, whether you come work for me or not.”

Sarah's sigh seemed to come all the way from her black boots which, Caroline noticed, were worn down at the heel. She knew all Sarah's money went on keeping that roof over their heads, and on the baby she adored.

“See, good does sometimes come out of bad,” Sarah exclaimed, delightedly. “You've just proven it.”

 

chapter 42

It was not until
after the pub closed that Caroline found time to check her e-mail. She was sitting up in bed, with Blind Brenda squeezed under her pillow, her hair scrunched into a stubby ponytail, and Clinique Repairwear hopefully doing its job. She had on a too-tight pink tee. She could have sworn she'd lost weight the last couple of weeks, she'd hardly eaten what with all the worry. Sighing, she guessed it must have shrunk in the wash. Laptop balanced on her knees she pressed Gmail and got her mother's message.

Isabel doing well (I refuse to call her Issy anymore, she says she does not like it anyway, and is too grown-up for baby names.) I told her she can call me Cassandra if she likes. She's slept a lot since we got back. She's very quiet and has not mentioned her father once. Nor does she mention that word “murder” anymore. Let's hope that sleeping dog will lie (as they say). She has agreed to go rescue the tomatoes with Grandpa tomorrow, and is currently feeding the fish in the pond at the far end of the property. Your father drives her there, perched on the back of the John Deere, he with his Panama, she with a baseball cap that says Upperthorpe Hockey on it. I didn't know our girl played hockey. Caroline, trust me, this is a good space for her, away from the reality of life and death. She'll never forget it, but one day, as we all must, she will be reconciled to it. As you must too, darling daughter of mine, pig-headed though you always were, plus you always had bad taste in men. Remember the long-haired one with the yellow teeth? Played in a rock band? And how about the marathon runner in obscenely short shorts who ate macrobiotic and totally ruined my dinner party? Always thought you should have married Mark. A much better bet. Love you anyway, and we will take care of your girl.