Provender Gleed (42 page)

She tried not to chuckle at the way he squirmed in his seat. 'It's not like that.'

'Of course not. Anyway, I've met them already, haven't I?'

'Yes. You have. But not properly.' He added, as if as an afterthought, 'I think you and my mother will get on.'

There was no easy response to that, and Is pretended something out there in the passing countryside had distracted her, permitting her to turn away from him. It so happened that the only eye-catching thing on view was a pair of swans who were afloat on a pond by the trackside, nuzzling bills and forming a heart shape with their necks. Drat nature! Where was a gloomy omen when you needed one? Is stared at the birds anyway, and sniffed, as if unimpressed.

From then onward till arrival at Dashlands the awkward silence was back between her and Provender and neither of them could figure out a way of breaking it again, least of all Is, who sensed, with heart-sinking certainty, that at some point later today Provender was going to say something to her she didn't want to hear and she was going to have to say something back that
he
didn't want to hear. And Provender, she felt, sensed this too.

63

One of the kitchen staff had to show Cynthia where the coffee beans were stored and how the grinder worked. The staff member, a sous-chef, offered to make the coffee for her but she would have none of it. 'I really ought to be able to do this sort of thing for myself,' she said with an airy laugh, sounding just as a doyenne of Dashlands should, ashamed by but not apologising for her lack of practicality. 'I've never fixed coffee for my husband before. It strikes me it's about time I learned.'

The sous-chef looked on as she ground the beans, boiled the water, filled the cafétière, found cups and saucers and a milk jug and a sugar bowl and spoons, all with a halting determination, a keenness to get the procedure exactly right first time, and he didn't know whether to feel admiration or pity, but settled on admiration, for who could not, in the end, admire Cynthia Gleed?

She carried the tray with the coffee on it through the house, a six-minute journey that took her past Triumph. In the statue's shadow she paused, glanced about to make sure she was unobserved, set the tray down, and swiftly and deftly introduced Oneirodam pills into one of the cups. She tapped out a dozen of them all told, then returned the small brown bottle to her pocket and resumed walking. The pills were so tiny they didn't cover even half of the cup's bottom. They were potent, though. One alone was enough to ensure a deep night's sleep.

Entering the television room, she laid the tray on a teak chiffonier which was out of Prosper's direct line of sight and high enough that, as long as he remained seated, he could not see into the cups. She then turned to the Phone and told him to leave the room; she wished some privacy with her husband. As the Phone exited, Cynthia heard the far-off trilling of another phone, one of the house's standard landlines. Someone would get it, Carver most likely. It didn't matter. What was important now? Nothing. Nothing except what she was about to do.

She poured out the coffee, making sure she knew which cup was which. It was simple: Prosper took his white with sugar, she took hers black. She stirred the one with the pills thoroughly until she was sure they had dissolved. Would the taste of the Oneirodam be detectable? She thought not. She had made the coffee strong, and, from experience, the pills had only the merest flavour, a faint acrid tang which you were aware of, if at all, after rather than while swallowing them. They would slip down unnoticed.

She brought the two coffees over to the sofa, handed Prosper his, then sat down in an armchair cater-corner to her husband. She reached for the cabinet into which was set the control panel that operated everything in the room - curtains, lights, television - and rotated the TV volume dial down to zero. In silence, she waited for Prosper to look round at her. Eventually he did.

'What?' he demanded. He looked haggard, irritable, old, uncharming.

'Do you love me?' she asked.

'That's an extraordinary question.'

'Well?'

'Yes. Of course. What do you think?'

'I still mean something to you, even after all this time, even after all your ... strayings.'

'Is that another question?'

'It is.'

'Same answer. Of course. You're my wife. It would be ridiculous if you didn't mean something to me.'

'You're sure about that?'

He stared at her levelly, sincerely, and said, 'I'm sure.'

Cynthia believed him. The eyes did not lie. Whatever feelings Prosper had for other women, they were fleeting, whereas what he felt for her was a constant in his life, a guy-rope which kept him tethered and which he could always count on. It was love. It wasn't passionate love, or lustful love, but a well-aged, weathered emotion he was so accustomed to and comfortable with he barely realised it was there any more. She had reminded him of it now. In the midst of all these tribulations, he knew once again where his heart and hope and health lay. His expression became almost fond. Years eased from his face.

'What's this about, Cynthia?'

'Nothing. I just wanted to hear it from you. Drink your coffee.'

'It's the strain, isn't it? I thought you'd stopped feeling it but I was wrong. Oh Lord, Cynthia, I love you, my daughters, my son, the whole of my Family. I may not show it as readily as you, but I do. You have to trust me on that. All the time, beneath it all, it's you. You I care about.' He was bordering on tears. Cynthia could not recall when she had last seen him that way. 'You want confirmation of it? Here it is. I'm saying so now. It's you.'

'Thank you, Prosper. Drink up.'

'Silly creature,' he said affectionately.

'It'll get cold.'

Prosper, smiling lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. Cynthia, mirroring him, sipped too.

PART VI

64

Is was on edge from the moment she stepped off the tram. Returning to Dashlands was in effect revisiting the scene of the crime, and although she was confident there would be no reprisals from the Gleeds, she suspected they would not take to her. Provender had assured her he would tout her as a heroine, the woman he owed his life to, but his life would never have been endangered in the first place had he not been kidnapped, and she had played a part in that, and his Family would learn that fact soon enough, and why would they not resent her then? All she had done for him after the kidnapping did not, in her mind, atone for the original offence.

That she cared at all what the Gleeds thought of her struck her as odd. She intended to stay at Dashlands for, what, a couple of hours? Enough time to join in the celebrations, drink a bit of the promised champagne, keep Provender company as he had asked - then she would demand a ride home. If she had to call a cab to come and take her back to London, so be it. Hang the expense. She didn't think she could cope with more than a couple of hours at the house, and setting herself a time limit was a sensible tactic. If things got uncomfortable for her, all she had to do was count the minutes till she could leave. The Gleeds could hate her if they wanted - they were welcome to - but they had only a fixed period in which to do so. Two hours, then she was gone.

The tram stop at Dashlands was roughly a mile from the house and set in a wooded glade where leaf shadows rippled and birdsong blared. As the tram car rolled away, Provender inhaled a deep, bracing breath - the sweet, sweet air of home - then struck off along an asphalted road that curved through a trunk-ribbed tunnel of deciduous forest. Is and Moore, of course, had no choice but to follow, and soon all three of them were out in the open, in the simmering flare of a summer afternoon, passing through the bowl of a shallow valley with parkland rising on either side: swathes of grass just starting to turn sere, dotted with oaks and chestnuts of venerable ancientness. Other than the drowse of insects, there was nothing but silence in the air. Moore encapsulated in two words what both he and Is, and perhaps Provender too, were feeling:

'Another world.'

'It is, isn't it,' she said.

'May I ask you something?'

'Go ahead.'

'Your full name.'

'Isis. Why?'

'And surname.'

'Necker.'

Provender glanced over his shoulder. 'I didn't know that.'

'Why should you? I never told you.'

'Isis Necker,' Provender said, trying it out.

'ISIS NECKER,' said Moore, and hummed. 'Oh yes.'

'Oh yes what?'

'Well, as you know, I anagrammatise. It's what I do. The truth of a person is encoded in their name. And yours came out as...'

'Oh God, I dread to think.'

'...NICE KISSER.'

'That's it? That's my truth?'

'If we take "kisser" in the American slang sense of "face", I would say yes, unquestionably.'

'Thanks. I think.'

'Not pleased?'

'I suppose I was hoping for something a bit more spectacular.'

'Well, give me time, I might be able to come up with another.'

'If you ask me, it's spot-on,' said Provender. 'And maybe you're a nice kisser in another sense, who knows?' He had one eyebrow raised. His gaze was hopeful.

'What about Provender?' Is said, laughing in order that her changing of the subject would not seem quite so obvious.

'Ah, Provender is a man of many anagrams,' said Moore. 'Believe me, my partner and I deciphered dozens. The one that hit me hardest was, in fact, the one I can least explain. I took his full name, including middle name, which is --'

'Stop right there,' said Provender, groaning. 'Don't. It's too embarrassing.'

'Go on,' said Is.

'I beg you, please.'

'It's not as if it's a state secret, Provender. I could easily look it up in Burke's Family Almanac.'

'Mr Moore, I will give you anything you ask, anything at all, just do not tell her.'

They were all laughing now, and Provender kept cajoling, offering Moore wilder and wilder bribes in return for his silence, and Is matched him by threatening Moore in increasingly elaborate ways, bidding against Provender's wealth with promises of violence, until the Anagrammatic Detective eventually blurted out 'Oregano', saying that he feared permanent physical disfigurement far more than he craved material goods, and Is began hooting hysterically and repeating the word Oregano over and over, and nothing Provender could say, no amount of feigned stroppiness, could get her to stop.

This happy scene was brought to a halt by the arrival of a three-strong welcoming committee from the house. Gratitude, Extravagance and Uncle Fortune appeared on the road, and no sooner did the two sisters catch sight of their brother than they broke into a run and fell on him in a flurry of shrieks and hugs and kisses. Extravagance gripped him so hard he had to push her arms off him in order to draw breath. When Fortune caught up, he too embraced Provender, then leaned back to examine him from top to toe.

'Intact. A bit rough around the edges but otherwise good as new.'

'I've been lucky,' Provender said. He submitted to another gratefully extravagant, extravagantly grateful display of affection from his sisters, then made introductions.

Is felt the weight of the Gleed sisters' gazes on her and saw the wary calculation in their eyes. Women always assessed one another on first meeting, but usually from a position of equality. There was no equality here. Gratitude and Extravagance scrutinised her from a viewpoint of implicit superiority, and saw that her clothes were inexpensive, her hair was simply and cheaply styled, her figure was not as diet-gaunt as theirs, and her looks and attitude nowhere near as refined as theirs. She refused to give them the satisfaction of looking cowed, though that was how she felt. She held her head high and, even when they frowned at her bruised cheek and puffy eye, didn't allow that to make her self-conscious.
You're no better than me
. She radiated nonchalance until, in the end, the sisters had their fill of looking and turned away. Possibly they had come to the conclusion that she was haughty, even impertinent. Is was not bothered. Let them think what they liked.

'Where's Mum?' Provender asked.

'Somewhere,' said Gratitude. 'Carver found us three first to tell us you were on your way home. He said he was going to look for Mum and for Dad. I bet they're not far behind us.'

'Now then, nephew,' said Fortune, 'I think you should tell us all about where you've been and what happened to you.'

'Can it wait till we get back to the house? I'm sorry but I haven't eaten since this morning and I'm...'

Provender's voice trailed off as he spied a figure hurrying along the road towards them. It was Carver, moving at a brisk jog-trot, fast as he could go, which was considerably faster than you would think likely for a man his age. In long, loping strides he reached the group, then braced his hands on his knees while he got his wind back. Finally, raising his head, he gasped, 'Quick. You must. Come quick. The house. Something's wrong. Mrs Gleed.'

65

In the television room, by the bright flicker of images of impending war, Prosper Gleed was in anguish. Medics were on their way. Carver had summoned them by using the emergency hotline in Great's apartment. But how long would they take? How soon could they get here? Soon enough?

He blamed himself. He should have noticed. His attention had been elsewhere. Cynthia had gone quiet and he thought she had simply drifted off to sleep. He had been sitting there, TV-absorbed, not realising - not even having an inkling - that something was wrong with his wife, until Carver walked in. Carver, clearing his throat, had been about to make an announcement of some sort, but one look at Cynthia and that was that. He had hurried over to her, felt for a pulse, tapped her cheek, asked how long she had been like this, then run off to the Granny Flat. Prosper had been alone with her ever since, alternately kneeling beside her and pacing the floor in circles. Her face was terrifyingly pale. When he touched her skin, she was cold. Her breaths were so shallow as to be all but imperceptible. To the casual observer she might have appeared to be asleep, but no one sleeping was quite so slumped, so slack-limbed, so motionless. Like a becalmed yacht, sails drooping, inert. How could he not have realised? It had happened right next to him, whatever it was. This silent, catastrophic collapse. Stroke? Heart failure? He had no idea. How could he have been so idiotically oblivious? His wife, slowly dying beside him! What kind of heedless moron was he?