Down Cemetery Road (10 page)

And Paula never spoke freely anywhere, or so Sarah was finding. ‘How long have you owned the cottage?’

‘About a year.’

‘And do you come here . . . often?’ Her voice trailing away.

‘Whenever Gerard feels like it.’

From up ahead, the odd word came wafting back: parts of that complicated vocabulary people never use, but money thrives on. Interim pre-tax profits. Commercial reserves. They spoke of entire nations as if other races marched ahead with a single thought in mind:
The Germans always this. The Japanese never that
. As if every other country in the world had a fixed agenda, while Jolly Old Blighty bumbled along, full of people who didn’t give a toss. That last part, in fact, felt pretty true to Sarah’s experience, but there were probably Wigwams and Rufuses in every country in the world.

‘And do you like it?’

But Paula just looked at her.

When they got back to the cottage it quickly became apparent that the fresh air and exercise element of the country weekend was officially at a close, and the drinking far too much aspect just breaking open. Gerard uncorked several bottles of wine at once, some to breathe, some not to get the chance, and for the next few hours time seemed to stand still for long stretches, then gallop to catch up at unexpected moments. Sarah kept a stern eye on her glass at first, until the effort of remembering her suspicions while pretending to enjoy herself started to weigh too heavily to allow for other considerations. Perhaps she was only pretending to suspect, and genuinely enjoying herself. Gerard kept up a flow of jokes which grew progressively raunchier as the afternoon wore off; Mark laughed a lot and it struck her as an unfamiliar sound. And Paula drank steadily and spoke about life in London, and where the best places to be seen were, and what made them the best places. She was starting to sound like a Muppet. When Sarah giggled at the wrong moment she found she couldn’t stop. ‘Sorry.’ Gerard said something she didn’t catch, and next moment Mark was bending over her, closer to her than he’d been since they’d last had sex. ‘I think you’re quite drunk, Sarah.’
I think we all are
, she wanted to tell him, but the effort was beyond her so she meekly allowed him to lead her upstairs instead, where she woke several hours later in a very dark room, with her head screwed on too tight and a mouth so dry she must have been force-fed crackers in her sleep.

She found the loo then cleaned herself up a bit. The face in the mirror was red-eyed, very pale-skinned: not a brilliant advert for your husband’s career she thought, before remembering she didn’t give a sod about Mark’s career, and it wasn’t her fault she’d got drunk anyway. When she came out it was to the sound of a minor earthquake in the adjoining room, and since its light was on and the door open she stuck her head round to find a fully clothed Paula on the bed, snoring to wake the dead. The survivor of a thousand city nights wasn’t looking too hot. Probably the country air. Feeling less a casualty for having witnessed another crash, she went downstairs in search of moving bodies.

Mark’s was not among them. Draped over the sofa, head back, mouth open, he had a washing-up bowl balanced on his knees, which Sarah’s long-term experience indicated was both prudent and not his own idea. The main light was off, and for one moment his face seemed to flicker in the dark, as if she were catching a glimpse of him from a passing train. But the movement was illusory; the darting shadows the TV. Gerard Inchon was watching a movie.

‘Cary Grant,’ she said, more to announce her presence than to let him know who he was watching. Buried in an armchair, he hadn’t looked round as she came down, and for a moment she thought he was asleep. But at last he turned his big head lazily round and nodded as if he’d been expecting her.

‘Archie Leach,’ he replied.

‘Archie Leach was a nobody,’ she said. ‘Cary Grant was a star.’ Why did she feel the need to duel with this man?

Whyever, he didn’t join in. ‘Sit,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’ He waved at an array of wine bottles, most of them empty. ‘I can open another,’ he added, reaching the same conclusion.

‘Water’ll do, thanks.’

‘We’ve got some of that. I think we keep it in the tap.’

‘I’ll find it.’

There were more empty bottles on the kitchen table, forcing Sarah to suppress a shudder as she found a glass, poured some water, drank it, poured some more. She couldn’t remember an afternoon when she’d drunk this much. Nor wished to. The afternoon anyway was long over: the kitchen clock said 11.20, and through the back window dark trees waved at her. She could make out her own reflection too. It wasn’t doing her any favours.

Back in the sitting room Cary Grant was climbing a flight of stairs, carrying a glass of milk with a light bulb in it. Gerard seemed engrossed but beckoned her to sit, pointing at a tray of sandwiches somebody had fixed up at some point. Suddenly ravenous, Sarah ate four, while on the screen in front of them an improbably happy ending imposed itself on what had been, up to that point, a good film. When the urge came to tell the audience
Everything is going to be all right
, it was definitely time to pack it in.

Gerard got up and turned the TV off.

She said, ‘Do all your weekends end like this?’

‘With me the last man standing?’

She nodded at Mark. ‘With your guests comatose, yes.’

‘Everybody arranges these things differently. I mean, how would I go about capping that evening at yours? Blow the neighbours up?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past you.’

‘They’d have to really annoy me. Wear brown shoes, or whistle in the mornings.’

‘Heinous crimes like that.’

‘We’ve all got standards. That husband of yours, drink a lot, does he?’

‘Depends on the company.’

‘I would, in his posish.’ Gerard had, even in his own. But except for a bloodening round the eyes and the occasional verbal stumble, you wouldn’t know it. Not bad going, with a dozen empties about the place.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning his job. Keep your hair on.’ He clumsily poured another glass of red. ‘So how’s it going, anyway? Your little problem?’

‘My what?’

He waggled his fingers. ‘BHS.’

‘
Vino veritas
,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t keep up the pretence, could you?’

‘Which pretence is that?’

‘That you’re not a shit.’

‘Ah, Sarah. Now, the thing is. What you have to do.’ He belched, softly. ‘You really have to learn who your friends are.’

Mark stirred and mumbled something in an alien tongue.

‘This is really good advice you’re giving me.’

‘You want good advice? I can give you that. Batten down the hatches, girl. You’ve got big trouble coming.’

‘So have you.’

He ignored her. ‘You’ll be wishing you were bored again. Soon. Trust me on this.’

‘I don’t trust you on anything.’

‘Time zhit?’ said Mark.

Gerard looked at him, then back at her. ‘If I was you, I’d get out while you can.’

‘Thank you, Gerard. You’re a prince among men.’

Mark sat up straight very suddenly. ‘God. Must have dropped off.’

‘Must have.’

‘Did I miss anything?’

‘Only Cary Grant.’

Mark rubbed his eyes. ‘Cary was here?’

‘Come on, old son,’ Gerard said. ‘Better be getting you upstairs.’

Ten minutes later they were all in bed, and what felt like ten minutes after
that
, Sarah was awake again. Downstairs, a shockingly healthy-looking Gerard was making tea for a gratifyingly woebegone Paula: they looked like a normal couple, damn them, Gerard having reverted to his Brilliant Host role, pouring tea from a caddy straight into the pot.

‘That’s a lot easier to gauge if you use a spoon.’

‘There’s not a spoon to be had. They’re all in the dishwasher.’

The downside of technology. Michael Crichton was probably writing a book about it. Gerard made a tray for her to take upstairs, and told her he and Paula were just off to mass, they’d be back in an hour or so. Sarah was mildly surprised, but hoped it didn’t show.

She went back to bed. Mark was well out of the running, only coming round long enough to make it clear he didn’t want breakfast and hadn’t appreciated the offer. So Sarah drank tea alone and unattended, reflecting as she did that there were two whole rooms in the cottage she’d not been in yet. Probably she’d have been able to sleep if that thought hadn’t arrived.

She showered, giving temptation time to wither and die, which it didn’t, and took their bedroom first. There wasn’t much to it; it looked, in fact, like a second guestroom, with even the clothes in the wardrobes having the air of being extras, spares. She imagined matching counterparts in other wardrobes in their London house; could almost picture Gerard and Paula buying two of everything, to save carting back and forth.

But poking around in other people’s bedrooms was a grubby business. She shut the door quietly behind her and thought seriously about forgoing the other room, which might only be a cupboard after all. So really there was no harm in looking, she decided; a piece of deductive justification which might have been more impressive had she reached the end of it before opening the door.

This room was tiny, little more than a boxroom, but it looked like Gerard got a dual purpose out of it anyway: part office, part gallery to his ego. On a table which was surely too big to have got through the door squeezed a PC, a telephone, a fax machine next to what might have been a baby photocopier plus a stack of papers and a palmtop. And around the walls hung framed photographs of Gerard at different stages of his important life: young and chubby, adolescent and chubby; prosperous and fat. In one of the older shots he stood in front of a low wall, flanked by, presumably, his parents. In the way old photographs have, this one looked as if black-and-white weren’t just the medium but the subject: the adults appearing straitened, uncomfortable; their very postures suggesting that their post-war years had kept oozing on into the sixties, the way they had in the North. In contrast young Gerard looked simply impatient, as though even at eight or nine he’d been waiting for the coloured times to arrive. He was holding a model aeroplane in a proprietorial way that left no doubt he had built it himself, but Sarah couldn’t discern much pride from his demeanour; more dissatisfaction that toys were all he had to occupy himself. His mother was pretty and slight. His father, much taller, stood with one hand on Gerard’s head, as if attempting to keep him where he belonged.

Other photos, of more recent vintage, showed Gerard fully emerged from the cocoon of childhood, not that the result resembled a butterfly. A happy slug came to mind. Here was Gerard breaking ground on what an accompanying picture proved an office block (Inchon Enterprises); Gerard spraying champagne over somebody getting out of an expensive car; Gerard becoming married in (of course) top hat and tails, while Paula posed winsomely beside him in a dress even Sarah could see cost well into four figures. She did, it had to be said, look lovely. Even Gerard came out of this one well. Something solemn had crept into his face, forming a solid foundation for what was obviously happiness. The result was to firm up his otherwise slack features; hardly putting him in heart-throb territory, but at least bestowing a visible sense of purpose you could mistake for integrity. Sarah found the same effect in another recent picture which showed him handing a cheque to a tall, priestly man; the pair of them standing in front of a small crowd of children. The background, mostly obscured, seemed to be an institution of some sort; a noiceboard behind them had part of what was probably a name,
rimat
, visible between young heads. Some religious setup, she hypothesized. Catholic or very high: he’d said
mass
.

She turned her attention to the clutter on the desk, hoping to find a bomb-maker’s manual among it. Nothing doing, but she picked up the palmtop to look at. She’d seen such toys but never operated one; was not really what you’d call a card-carrying member of the technological society, though had enough experience to know the average computer could take you from How Hard Can It Be? to What The Hell Happened There? in two seconds flat. That was the downside. The upside was it was very small with an obvious on-button and where was the harm in trying? This button proved remarkably simple to operate and the little screen came to life immediately, flashing a prompt she guessed was its demand for a password. What kind of password would a man like Gerard use? She went for blindingly predictable, and keyed
Paula
.
Invalid Password
it countered. Not a single other word came to mind. It was as if her brain had been rinsed of all vocabulary.

‘What are you looking for?’

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

‘Sarah?’

‘I wasn’t looking
for
anything. I was just looking.’ She put the machine down before turning round, hoping he wouldn’t notice, then switched topics in what she prayed was an undetectable, natural manner. ‘My God, you look awful.’

‘I feel awful.’ Mark ran a hand across his forehead. ‘That wine must have been a bit dodgy.’

‘That fifth bottle was corked, probably. Come on, I’ll make you some coffee.’

Mark took a detour via the bathroom and by the time he joined her in the kitchen, dressed, the others were pulling up outside. ‘They may be godly, but at least I’m clean,’ he said.

‘I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t go with them. Keep the client sweet.’

He gave her a hard look.

‘It was a joke, Mark.’

‘It needs work.’

‘And you need this.’ She gave him a cup of coffee.

’No, what he needs is a hair of the dog,’ said Gerard, entering. Then, at the look Mark gave him, laughed and said, ‘But it’ll keep. Actually, I wanted a word, Mark, since you’re up. Don’t mind, do you?’ He addressed the question to Sarah.

Be a good girl, now. Run along and play
. But residual guilt from snooping, or from being caught snooping, left her unable to object.

Gerard handed her a bunch of newspapers and took Mark up to his study, while a still interestingly pale Paula mumbled something about a lie-down, and disappeared. Sarah took her bundle into the garden, and spent the next hour reading what appeared to be the same set of articles in three different papers, before drifting softly to sleep in the sunshine. She was woken by a hand stroking her cheek, though Mark’s words weren’t as affectionate as his gesture.