In a Good Light (47 page)

‘Anyway, we sort of helped to scrape each other off the floor,' said Penny, flexing her long, ringless fingers.

Oh really? I thought.

The condition of my hand and shoulder meant driving was out of the question, so various possibilities were put forward, which would result in both me and my car getting home.

Finally Penny, the great organiser, decided that Donovan should drive me in the truck, while she and Cassie followed behind in my car. Donovan would then bring them both back to Weybridge. Beyond that, she didn't elaborate: perhaps he was, after all, ‘sleeping over'.

I had rung Rowena to warn her I wouldn't be coming in to work and she had accepted my excuses with a very ill grace. ‘Friday night,' she wailed. ‘Where am I going to get someone at this short notice?' And then, ‘What's wrong with your other hand?'

In what was left of the daylight, Donovan sawed the lengths of poplar trunk into logs, and dragged the thinner branches up the garden to the front of the house. Penny helped him feed them into the shredder, which chewed them to a coarse sawdust and sprayed them into the bed of the truck. I was excused on account of my injuries, so
I played Yahtzee with Cassie instead, and then acted incredulous while she ran through her repertoire of card tricks.

‘Shall I tell you how I did it?' she'd say, when I'd overdone the bafflement.

‘No – magicians never tell,' I said. ‘It's a rule.'

‘Oh.' She looked disappointed: she'd been desperate to give up her secrets. ‘I've already told Lauren,' she added, in a worried tone.

‘Who's Lauren?'

‘My best friend. I hate her,' she replied, managing to distil the curious and complex flavour of childhood attachments in six short words. I could feel the idea of a book struggling to be born. The cover illustration was clearly before me: one of my scratchy pen and ink drawings of a girl with a blue-black nimbus of rage throbbing about her head. It wouldn't be a pretty-princess sort of book, but it would be true.

‘Do you think you can love and hate someone at the same time?' I asked her.

She had begun building the bottom layer of a house of cards, making rows of trestles, supported at the sides and bridged, one to another. I held my breath. It was such a flimsy structure. ‘Yes,' she said, without needing any time to think. ‘Daddy.'

‘Oh. Right.' I didn't know whether it was wise to reopen this particular wound, but she pressed on. ‘When he left I hated him for upsetting Mummy. But when he came to take me out he was just the same as he always was. Actually he was nicer; he didn't ever tell me off or smack me.'

‘I used to know your daddy,' I said. ‘A long time ago.'

‘I know. Mummy told me. Did you know Donovan, too?'

‘Yes. I've known Donovan since I was, well, younger than you.'

‘I wish Donovan would marry Mummy,' she sighed, beginning on the second storey. ‘Then he could stay here all the time.'

Again that stab of dismay. ‘Do you think he will?'

‘No,' Cassie shook her head with a look of resignation that seemed to convey all the wisdom of antiquity. ‘Nothing I want to happen ever happens.' Her hand trembled, and the card she was holding snicked the corner of the structure so that the whole thing caved in, flopping gracefully onto the carpet.

‘I hope her driving's improved,' I said, glancing fearfully in Donovan's wing-mirror as Penny got behind the wheel of my car and pulled out into the road behind us. ‘I've only got third party insurance.'

Donovan laughed. ‘Could be an expensive day out for you. First I ruin your clothes, then Penny writes off your car. You may end up wishing you'd stayed in bed.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It's been a very interesting day. Cassie even gave me an idea for a book.'

‘She's great, isn't she?'

‘Yes, she comes out with these little gems in such a solemn voice. And what's weird is, she looks more like Penny than Penny does. If you see what I mean.'

Donovan smiled at this observation. ‘Better she takes after Penny than Wart.'

‘You don't like him?'

‘Not much.'

‘Penny told me all about their break-up. It seems like he treated her pretty badly.'

‘And what she doesn't know is that it wasn't the first time. Or the second.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘He used to tell me. We'd play squash and go for a pint every so often, and I'd hear all about the latest woman he was screwing. It put me in a really difficult position.'

‘I can imagine.' We were having to talk in awkwardly raised voices because of the noise of the engine. The interior of the cab smelled of petrol and rust; and there was a snaking crack across my side of the windscreen, giving it a curious, bifocal effect. A gust of cold air blew through a gap at the top of his window where the rubber had perished. Between us the gear stick juddered madly. Donovan had to catch it and calm it down before he could change gear.

‘Then it got so that he would have a quick game of squash and then rush off to meet whoever-she-was-at-the-time,' he went on. ‘I said no way was I going to be his alibi, and things were a bit cool between us after that. Penny was always more my friend than him.'

‘Do you still see him?'

‘No. I reckon in the last two years I've lost at least fifty per cent of my friends to divorce – theirs or mine. It's like the Black Death.'

I couldn't help laughing.

‘It's true. Sharing out the Wedgwood and the fish knives is a breeze. It's carving up your mates that's the real killer.'

‘Penny did mention that you'd been married,' I said, instinctively turning round to check that they were still following. Cassie returned my wave.

‘I suppose she gave you all the sordid details,' Donovan said, frowning.

‘Oh, well, more or less,' I admitted, since indiscretions were already flowing freely.

‘It was all that infertility treatment that caused the problem. Endless, endless tests, and the monthly dashing of hopes. We were perfectly happy before that. But it seemed to poison every part of our lives.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that. You'd make a good father, I'm sure.'

‘Well, Dad provided me with an excellent model of what not to do.'

‘Anyway, it's not too late. It's never too late for a man.'

Donovan gave me a sideways glance. ‘Have you never felt the call of motherhood? Or is it another sacrifice you've made for Christian?'

We were on to the M25 now, and the need to project our voices and occasionally repeat ourselves wasn't ideally conducive to exchanging these confidences. ‘Sometimes I think it would be nice,' I replied. ‘Like seeing Cassie today. Anyway, my circumstances are a bit complicated. My boyfriend is already married to someone else.' I shouldn't have brought Geoff into the conversation. I should have known that after what we'd been discussing it wasn't a revelation that was likely to impress. But Donovan had spoken frankly and I felt obliged to reciprocate. Besides, I wanted to correct any impression I might have given of being immemorially unloved.

‘Oh?' Donovan sounded quite taken aback. ‘Does his wife know?'

‘God, no. Of course not.'

‘Have they got children?'

‘Yes – a boy and a girl. Teenagers. I don't know them: we've never met.'

‘How long has it been going on?'

‘Four years.'

‘Four years! Does he keep promising he'll leave her, and then not doing it?'

‘No, no, nothing like that. I don't want him to leave her. I don't want her to be hurt.'

Donovan shook his head over this, flummoxed. ‘I can see what's in it for him. But what's in it for you?'

‘Well. It's a relationship. Friendship. Sex. Conversation. Admiration. You know.' Ahead of us I could see ranks of brake lights flashing. Gradually the traffic slowed to a crawl and then stopped altogether.

‘Where did you meet him?'

‘He was my GP. He's not any more,' I added hastily. ‘He made me switch surgeries immediately, for ethical reasons.'

‘So he takes his professional oath seriously, but not his marriage vows. Interesting.' I could sense disapproval coming off him like static. It was the second time today I'd been made to feel like a social pariah, a peddler of misery in the same camp as the despicable Wart, and I didn't like it one bit.

‘You sound shocked,' I said.

‘You weren't expecting a round of applause, were you? I've been on the receiving end of adultery and it sucks, believe me.' He wasn't ranting in any way, but the friendly atmosphere had definitely chilled.

‘You can't compare individual cases . . .'

‘Plus, I saw what it did to Mum. So did you. It destroyed years of her life.'

In a minute I was going to be blamed for Donovan's rotten childhood. ‘That's why I'm very anxious that Geoff's wife never knows. I'm not a threat to their marriage. I'm really not.'

‘How do you know she doesn't already suspect? Aren't women supposed to be gifted with all this intuition?'

‘You said yourself that Penny didn't know about all Wart's other women,' I reminded him.

‘Okay,' he conceded. ‘But she found out enough to wreck the marriage in the end.'

‘Anyway, strictly speaking, I'm not the one committing adultery. I've not broken any vows.' A more feeble piece of self-justification it would be hard to imagine. Donovan raised his eyebrows and gave me a cynical, sidelong look.

‘What do your parents think?'

I was forced to concede that I hadn't actually told them.

‘Ah, so you obviously do have a troubled conscience.'

‘Of course I do,' I said impatiently. ‘But if I did tell them I know what they'd say. What Jesus said: “Let he who is free from sin cast the first stone,” and all that.' I thought this was an inspired riposte, which would silence him on the subject for ever.

Donovan nodded. ‘Yeah, but he also said, “Go and sin no more . . .”'

‘Look, I didn't intend to get into a discussion about my morals,' I snapped. ‘I wish I'd never mentioned it now.' I slumped back in my seat and stared out at the columns of traffic trundling forwards, inch by inch, as though shackled together. Just my luck to be stuck in the front of a truck in the rush hour with a religious zealot.

‘Sorry,' said Donovan. ‘It was an interesting subject. I got carried away.' Silence settled over us. I continued to gaze out of the window at the necklace of red and white lights threading away into the dusk – an infinity of little tin boxes on wheels – and I thought what I always think when
driving on a motorway: so many people whose lives will never intersect with mine.

At last we reached the Caterham turn-off and Donovan spoke. ‘Will Christian be in when we get there? It'd be great to see him.'

‘Until very recently I'd have said: “It's Friday, so yes, he certainly will.” But he's in the grip of New Love right now so his behaviour's no longer predictable. All his routines are up the spout.'

‘Lucky him,' said Donovan.

‘He used to be a complete hermit. And wild horses wouldn't have got him inside a theatre. Now he's off to the Barbican every five minutes. He can't get enough of old Shakespeare. And someone in the house is reading W.B. Yeats, and it's not me.'

‘God,' said Donovan. ‘It sounds terminal.'

‘I think it may be. He's been going out with Dad for a curry and some man-talk every Thursday for at least a decade, and last week he forgot. Just completely forgot to turn up!'

‘How is your dad, by the way? He was always so good. A saint, really.'

‘He's fine. Retired, pottering about.' I explained about his breakdown and recovery, and his and Mum's unorthodox living arrangements. ‘Since Mum's gone he's rediscovered fun. He actually spends money on himself. Little treats like dates and Belgian chocolates and parmesan.' I described the incident with the designer trunks.

‘Good for him,' said Donovan. ‘I love spending money.'

I glanced at the decaying interior of the truck and thought that could hardly be the case. As usual the lay-by on the dual carriageway was strewn with trash, and not just
windblown litter either. Old tyres, prams, plastic sheeting, pipes, planks, a mattress – at least a skip's worth of refuse had been dumped up against the hedges. For some reason I felt obliged to apologise for its presence.

‘How's your mum, anyway?' I asked. We were nearly home now and I would soon have to start giving directions.

‘Living quietly in sheltered accommodation in Bournemouth. Secretary of the bowls club. Pillar of the church choir—'

‘Are you serious?'

‘No, of course not. I had you going for a minute, though. No, she actually lives in Totnes with a potter called Peter. She's involved in a long-running feud with her neighbour, which seems to take up most of her time.'

‘That sounds more like Aunty Barbara. What's it about?'

‘It was a boundary dispute over a tree, originally. Unfortunately it's escalated in Mum's capable hands. She fires off about six letters a day to her MP and the local paper. Between that and flying back and forth to the States visiting her old lags on death row, she's kept pretty busy.'

‘She's still doing that, then?'

‘Very much so. She must have been to more executions than Madame Defarge.'

‘Did she actually marry that bloke – Kapper? I noticed she'd taken his name.'

‘Oh yes, she married him all right. I think it was political rather than romantic. She did it to get publicity for the cause.'

‘Did it work?' I asked, directing Donovan to turn left at the lights.

‘Yes. Too late for him though. But her name is in the cuttings file now, and every time there's a death row story
in the news someone from the
Daily Mail
rings her up for a quote.'