Facing the Tank (27 page)

‘Did you
have
to wear the red dress,
cariño
?’ Mercy asked as Madeleine and she crossed the High Street to Labels, the new wine bar where her daughter was taking her for lunch.

‘Naturally,’ said Madeleine. ‘I wear my dresses in strict rotation. I came with six, six days ago so it’s time for the red one.’ Her mother sighed heavily. ‘I know it doesn’t suit me now that I’m pregnant …’

‘Ssh!’

‘Now that everyone knows I’m pregnant, but it goes well with my hair and it makes me feel proud to be me.’ She held open the swing doors and Mercy walked in past her. ‘Would you rather we spoke Spanish?’

‘Much.’

So they spoke Spanish.

Labels was a converted cellar. There were stools around a central bar for customers who wanted only to drink and tables tucked into whitewashed, up-lit vaults for those who wished to eat. Mercy chose a table and her daughter fetched a menu then joined her there.

‘If this were in London,’ said Madeleine, ‘it would be the kind of place where married businessmen took their personal assistants after hours, but as it’s in Barrowcester, it’s patronized by mothers and daughters who want somewhere “naicer” than a pub. Who else ever comes here?’

‘Boys and girls from Tatham’s who want to smoke in comfort and drink decent coffee.’ Mercy gestured towards the bar behind her daughter. Madeleine turned and saw that most of the stools were taken up by Tathamites, round shouldered in their effort to pass unnoticed, heads lost in smoke. A small boy standing by one of the stools was lighting up. Madeleine caught his eye and grinned. Confused, he smiled, waved his lit match at her and turned back to his companions.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Mercy.

‘My latest conquest,’ said Madeleine, shifting back to face her. ‘I taught him how to smoke and where babies and puppies come from.’

‘
Madoña
,’ she muttered. She had thought that if they spoke Spanish, people might mistake them for tourists but already several were staring with amused recognition. Then an attractive, trousered waitress in a white shirt and black tie came to take their order and murmured that the manager said they could have whatever bottle they liked free. Madeleine chose a Montrachet, Mercy’s favourite, and Mercy felt pleasure where she had harboured shame.

She had spent the forty-eight hours since her extraordinary experience in Deirdre’s flat on Thursday in a state of raw nerves. Convinced that, while receiving her revelation about her unorthodox ‘marriage’, she had revealed too much to Deirdre’s eager ears, she had been to Evensong on Thursday and to early Communion, Evensong and a quick lunchtime prayer on Friday. On each visit she had begged Barrowcester’s God to visit discretion upon her friend. She had emerged from each bout of prayer searching the faces she greeted for the one that would find it hard to meet her eye, the one that turned aside in embarrassment, but found only warm good wishes and congratulations on the survival of her ‘ordeal’. Convinced as she was that her exposure was imminent, each friendly glance came as a nerve-twisting stay of execution. The terrific storm which had struck during Friday’s Evensong had made her yet more tense and she had been grateful for the business of the rats and poor Professor Kirby’s manuscript as a brief alternative crisis to occupy her hands if not her mind. She had tidied his room and made him up a clean bed. Then she had gone to bed early, pleading exhaustion, and lain awake half the night plotting her own doom. The telephone had rung during her breakfast this morning and the Bishop had told her of Deirdre’s stroke. She had rushed to her friend’s bedside with a vast bouquet and found her deprived of all but one scarcely incriminating, word.

‘Lovely.’ Deirdre wept on seeing her. ‘Lovely lovely lovely.’

Holding Deirdre’s hand and listening to her repetitive sighs, she had shed a tear for the efficacy of prayer and made a silent vow to devote herself in recompense to her stricken friend’s every future need.

Now the only question that remained was whether to leave Madeleine in ignorance. The details of her parentage could be said to concern any daughter. It might also be claimed that, when her father and grandfather were one and the same, every girl had a right to know. Quite aside from the dues owed her daughter, however, the contents of Mercy’s unblocked memory were extremely difficult to keep bottled up. The mother’s first impulse had been to rush home and tell Madeleine all. It would be difficult to explain to her how she had made her discoveries without being sidetracked into an argument on the ethics and safety of spiritualism. That her discoveries were truthful, she had no doubt. She had tried in vain to explain her experience as a species of vivid daydream; the few brief images and sensations had laid bare a route back into her memory and already, as with childhood photographs too often scrutinized, she could no longer distinguish recollection from subsequent vision. Also, finding that she was now the girl’s sister had made Mercy protective of her daughter’s welfare in a way she never was as plain mother. Now they were allies against Man the Beast.

The wine arrived. Madeleine tasted it, even though it was on the house, then she raised a glass to Mercy.

‘
Salud, pesetas
and rather less of
amor
,’ she proposed. They drank, then ordered rare steaks
au poivre
.

‘Well,’ Mercy said. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m keeping it, I’m afraid.’

‘Why afraid?’

‘Well, you can’t want to be a granny yet, and I’m sure you’d rather you became one through the usual channels.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ Even as she imagined Marge Delaney-Siedentrop reacting in horror, Mercy found herself experimenting with a little liberal delight. ‘I’m so
pleased, cariño
.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. And after all, it’s not as though it’s a secret any more. I think people would be far more scandalized after all the newspapers and things if they found you walking around baby-less.’

‘And if it takes after you and Edmund it’ll look so distinguished.’

‘You say the sweetest things.’ Mercy bit on a piece of bread from the basket before them and pictured a cross between poor, waistless Madeleine and Jésus’ gross mother. ‘Will you go back to work right away?’ she asked.

‘Fed up with me, already, eh?’

‘Not a bit of it. Don’t be silly. I just wondered. I mean, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but I thought perhaps your professors would be expecting you back.’

‘No. I thought I might take an extended leave of absence and find myself a seaside hovel where I could be at peace.’

‘Impractical as ever.’

‘Well what would you suggest?’

‘I think you should hang on to your flat. It could be so hard to find another one.’

‘And where would you stay when you came down for the sales if baby and I were hiding away in a squalid lean-to in East Anglia?’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that at all,’ said Mercy and wondered why they were being so untruthful with each other. More than anything she would like Madeleine to stay on in Barrowcester, her home, to have the baby. She could live in the granny flat and even pay her mother rent if she was worried about independence. It would be so nice. ‘Here’s our lunch,’ she said.

Lunch passed quickly. As they ate their steak and salad, drank their wine and chatted amiably enough about babycare and ways of giving up smoking, Mercy felt an encroaching sadness at Madeleine’s departure. There was none of the normal relief that she was about to be left in peace again. Her daughter had been different on this visit. Of course she was physically as hopeless as ever, blowsy and graceless as her paternal grandmother, but there was a new strength about her – one might waver before calling it poise – and Mercy realized that this had evoked something approaching respect. She wanted Madeleine to stay on. She wanted them to become friends. She did not want to be left alone with the awfully crippled Deirdre as sole companion.

After a token fuss, Madeleine insisted on paying the bill. She produced a credit card. Mercy stared at the dangerous piece of plastic and wondered how long her daughter could have been so rash. She was just standing for her coat when Madeleine tugged her suddenly by the cuff and sat her down again.

‘Mum, there’s something I haven’t told you. I was going to run away without telling you and suddenly I know that would have made me feel a silly bitch. Sit.’

‘How much more can there be?’ thought Mercy. ‘What is it?’ she asked. That was it. She had
known
that there was something being held back. That was what had made her sad; not the departure but the secrecy.

‘Evan Kirby’s in love with me.’

Mercy felt first a stab of envy, then shock that she did so.

‘
Cariño
, I could have told you that days ago,’ she bluffed. ‘Haven’t you seen the way he’s been following you around with those hangdog eyes? Too pathetic.’

‘He’s not pathetic. He’s a very interesting man.’

‘He’s old enough to be your father.’

Mercy heard herself and was sickened.

‘He’s asked me to go away with him.’

‘Where to?’

‘I dunno. Somewhere where we can be quiet and safe.’

‘Absurd. You don’t even know him.’

‘I think I know him quite well. We’ve had several long conversations.’

‘And you think that’s enough?’

‘It’s a start.’

‘So you are leaving your flat?’

Madeleine seemed nervous suddenly. She reached up for their coats and started to play with her red dress.

‘I don’t know. Maybe. It’s too early to say. Look, Mum, I’ve got to go and it’s time you were back in the shop.’

‘I go back to the shop when I please. It’s my shop.’ Mercy stood.

‘Well I’ve got to go anyway, I said I’d meet Evan to talk before he sets off.’

‘Well thank you for my lunch.’

‘Oh don’t be all cold and superior with me. It’s been so nice just talking. And you’ve put up with so much this week, I feel awful. Will you come and stay?’

‘Where?’

‘Wherever I end up.’

Mercy laughed. The girl was still a child. A fat, foolish child. She kissed her cheek.

‘Little Trouble,’ she said. ‘We’ll see,’ and they walked back up into the sunshine.

Unlocking the door of Boniface Crafts once more, she watched as Madeleine walked away then broke into an alarming run for home. As a child, Madeleine had never run if she could possibly walk. Mercy wondered at this revolution in her.

‘Excuse me?’

He was a tall, Barrowcester blond youth with an orange rucksack on his back.

‘Yes?’

‘You are Mrs Merluza, yes?’

‘That’s right. Mercy Merluza. How can I help you?’

He wore shorts and his long legs were tanned and glistened with fine blond hairs.

‘My name is Oskar, Oskar Svensson, yes? And the lady in the tourist information office said that you let out rooms.’

‘Indeed I do. For how many nights would you be wanting one?’

‘Five. Maybe six? I am here to make drawings of the tombs.’

‘Lovely, Mr Svensson. Well, if you come to my house at eight Tracer Lane at say six o’clock, I’ll have my daughter’s room ready for you.’

‘You are most kind. The address again, please?’

‘Eight Tracer Lane.’

She was pleased with his ice-blue eyes and the delicacy with which he noted the address in a small green diary and refrained from asking about the rent. She would charge him a little less than she had the Professor.

‘Good. I shall see you there at six o’clcok precisely,’ he said.

‘Lovely.’

He left the shop, setting the bell tinkling over the door, and left her alone with her overpriced knitwear and ugly local pottery. She peered into her mirror to check the lie of her hair then put the kettle on for tea.

Lunch went quite well, possibly because they had never met and would in all probability never do so again. Emma had not gone to a great deal of trouble; she believed it kinder to strangers not to. She had bought a couple of tins of a superior brand of
vichyssoise
at Hart’s along with a selection of interesting English cheeses an American would be unlikely to know, some fresh granary bread and a big bunch of grapes. She had also opened a bottle of white wine that Clive Hart had brought to supper once and which she therefore assumed was a few grades above plonk.

She had dreaded that he would go on and on about Jeremy, since her cousin was the obvious friend in common, but he had kept surprisingly quiet on that subject. At first. She had tried to lead him out on his work. She had not actually read the book on Hell but she had glanced at it in the library and read several lengthy reviews so she had done enough homework to pose a few convincing questions. They had sat eating at the kitchen table, chatting about the Last Judgement, Dante, modern Satanism and so on. He then began to relax with the wine (and the aspirins he had asked her for) and it turned out that he had been a great fan of her father’s sermons and writings. He complained that religious discourse and history were such private forms that he knew only of her father’s personality from what he could glean from the humanity of his observations and the quirkier of his footnotes. Nobody had asked her about her father in a long while. He was such a local figure that most Barrowers accepted him dumbly as a cultural
donnée
, like the Virgin Birth. She was hesitant at first then, once she had perceived that his interest was genuine, she found herself painting a wry, loving picture of the old man. She spoke of his manner of working, of the obsessive hours he would spend poring over seed catalogues or tracing the genealogy of a rose he was about to plant. She described his love of sandcastles and his dangerous habit of riding his bicycle abreast of one’s own instead of behind or in front, so as to continue a conversation.

By the time she was loading the coffee things on to a tray to take through to the study, where the sun was just arriving, she too had relaxed completely. Evan Kirby was attractive for his age, not unlike Gary Cooper in fact. She had seen in newspapers in the choir school common room how he had become ensnared by Madeleine Merluza and was even rumoured to be paying for her abortion. She thought this a pity. She remembered Madeleine as a fat, spiteful little girl. There was a slight awkwardness when she asked in passing what he was working at now and he said,

‘Finished. It’s all finished,’ in an unexpectedly belligerent fashion and drained a full glass of wine, but soon they were in the study and he was happily on the hunt for Dyce-Hamilton memorabilia. Coffee cup in hand, he stooped to peer at the photographs. He asked a few questions about Emma’s adoptive mother, then picked up the beach photograph that had made poor Crispin cry.

‘Is that you?’ he asked, taking a closer look.

‘Yes,’ she said a little shyly.

‘You haven’t changed much. God in heaven! Is that Jeremy behind you all, with the seaweed on his head?’

‘That’s right. He was showing off as usual.’

‘He hasn’t changed much either.’

‘How was he when you saw him last?’ she asked.

‘Oh. Same as ever. Still happily married,’ he said, replacing the photograph with care and taking a seat opposite her.

‘He’s not married. Not any more,’ she assured him. ‘Are you sure we’re thinking of the same Jeremy?’

‘Oh God. Pardon me. I mean …’ He was suddenly covered in confusion. Wild thoughts shot through Emma’s mind of secret espousals, a Chinese beauty hidden away in Kilburn, a lovely but crippled poetess in Chiswick.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Oh God. I wasn’t meant to tell you. At least, he didn’t say anything, but I assumed Barrowcester being Barrowcester, that he hadn’t told you. And now I’ve added insult to injury. But I guess …’

‘What?’

‘He’s not married, exactly, but he does live very happily with a vet called James.’

‘Ah. The lodger.’

It was as if she had just opened a door and found a whole roomful of people in garish party hats who jeered in unison and blew party poopers at her.

‘Is that what he told you?’ Evan Kirby’s voice was full of avuncular concern and she wished him gone.

‘Well no, not in so many words.’ She grinned and put on her brightest tone. ‘It was just my naive assumption. I think Jeremy must have supposed that I knew and that I was being terribly civilized and unprurient. Do you think that was why Jill … er?’

‘Yes. I reckon it’s as good a reason for divorce as any.’

‘How is Jill? I’ve heard nothing of her for ages. She sent a Christmas card the year after she left him and then nothing.’

‘I’m not sure. I think she might have moved back to Exeter.’

‘Back to the university?’

‘Yeah.’

And somehow Emma managed to sustain her half of a conversation that was rapidly steered back to the unshadowed paths of banality. She forced herself to offer him a second and a third cup of coffee and even to show him around her late father’s garden before he left at about three. She washed up as soon as he was gone and even dried everything meticulously and put it away in the cupboards.

Then she noticed that the cats were nowhere to be seen. She could not remember them having put in an appearance for several hours. Rubbing some cream into her hands, she set out through the house to look for them. They were nowhere downstairs, neither in the basement nor the potting shed. Starting to panic slightly, she hurried up the stairs. She was just emerging from her bedroom, where they sometimes lay on the bed, when she heard voices and froze. Two voices, one male, one female, were coming from behind the spare room door. Their tone was mocking, accusatory.

‘So I told her … It’s no use, I said …’

‘Absurd. Quite absurd. But of course she never listens. Pathetic creature, really.’

‘And now this.’

‘
Mon cher
, I mean,
really!
’

There was a burst of mocking laughter. Panting with fear, Emma thrust open the door. No one was there but the cats who looked up, angry at the interruption, from the foot of one of the beds. Emma slammed the door to again, shutting them in. She ran to her room and threw herself face down on her bed, soothing her burning face in cool cotton.

‘This is how it begins,’ she said out loud. Faintly, because she was a floor up, she heard the glassy strains of Dr Feltram’s harpsichord.