The Girl Next Door (11 page)

11

W
HEN HE THOUGHT
about it, which wasn’t often, Michael told himself he got on well with his children. If he had to think of a word to describe Jane and Richard’s attitude towards him, he would have come up with
dutiful
, and his to them with
undemanding
. They always seemed to be in different parts of the world, and since they communicated by email, it was difficult to tell where they were. He never asked them to come home, but part of their dutifulness was that occasionally they did, usually bringing him a present, once an iPod (Jane) because he liked listening to music in private, and on another occasion half a dozen handmade silk shirts from Seoul (Richard). Both were in their forties. Jane, divorced, had two children, both grown-up now. Richard, who had never married, Michael supposed was gay, but the subject had never been discussed. Many subjects were not discussed in the family, such as life and death and family relationships. When the two came back to this country for four or five days at a time, they invariably stayed in hotels, dutifully visiting Michael every day of their stay. This time, for Jane, it was different. She said so in an email.

She would like to stay with him. It seemed ridiculous, he having this big house and she staying miles away in a “soulless” hotel. She didn’t mention the expense, she wouldn’t. Neither of his children
ever spoke of money in his presence. When he had read the email, he went upstairs and had a look at the bedroom on the second floor next to the one he slept in. It was quite all right, rather small with a single bed and a tiny, freestanding cupboard for clothes. The occupant would have to share his bathroom. He went on up the stairs and into Vivien’s room. Naturally, Jane would expect to sleep here.

Removing his shoes and carefully folding back the white silk quilt, he lay down on the bed on the side that had always been his and, with his eyes closed, put his arm round her ghostly body, imagining he felt her warmth. He seldom spoke to her but he did now.

“Shall I let your daughter sleep here, my darling?”

Of course she would. There was no question. Jane would take it for granted, perhaps not even noticing the shrine aspects of the room, the peculiar care that had been lavished on it. His children were not observant, they were not sensitive. He blamed himself, reflecting that he hadn’t been sensitive with them. Kind enough, yes, indulgent and generous, but not understanding. He had kept all that as well as love for their mother. Yet he could easily be hurt. He foresaw how he would feel when Jane marched into this room and exclaimed that it was “just like it was when it was Mummy’s. Why don’t you sleep here?”

Jane’s reaction was in fact very like that. She stepped over the threshold and, having inhaled the scent of the white roses he had put in a vase to greet her, flung her arms round him and cried, “Oh, Daddy, am I intruding? You’ve made this your private place for communing with Mummy.”

Later, when she had settled down in what she called “the sacred room,” he took her out to dinner, not willing to cook for her and sure she wouldn’t welcome it. They talked about her children, whom he barely knew, and about her new job. She was a doctor, a high-powered paediatrician. He told her about Zoe, and Jane made him wince by saying she was surprised “the old dear” was still alive.

“Then you’ll be even more so when I tell you my father is.”

“Too right I will. He must be a hundred years old.”

“When people say that they think they’re exaggerating, but in fact he is. Well, ninety-nine.”

“You never see him, do you?”

“I almost never see him,” Michael said. “Ever since his wife died, he’s been living in a luxurious old people’s home where everyone has a personal butler and a Jacuzzi.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’ve never seen all this, of course. I get it from Zoe.”

Next morning Brenda Miller phoned to say Zoe was ill and had gone into hospital. She had pneumonia.

“I’ll come straightaway.”

Jane said briskly, “What a shame when I’ve just come,” but seemed quite resigned to his absence. She had lots to do, she said, and hundreds of people to see.

“I won’t stay there,” he said. “I’ll be back this evening.”

“Mind you say hallo to her from me.”

Zoe would be beyond greetings of that kind, he thought, but he promised he would. Pneumonia, which was once called the old man’s friend because, without drugs, painlessly and slowly it gently carried him to his end. They would try to keep Zoe alive and no doubt succeed for a while. But perhaps she had asked not to be resuscitated.

She had said he was her son and she his mother. Those emotive words brought the tears to his eyes that had been withheld while he was with her in her house. He wept in the back of the taxi on his way to the hospital. She was conscious, propped up on pillows, and Brenda was with her.

“I’ll go,” Brenda said. “I’ll leave you alone together.”

He held Zoe’s hand. Her voice had sunk to a whisper. She was lucid but forced to be sparing in what she said.

“Your father. When I’m gone, he will be quite alone.” She paused, looked searchingly at him. Her eyes were still clear. “I have said harsh things of him. Maybe I have been wrong. The alibi—did I dream it?”

“No, no, Zoe, of course not.”

“I don’t know. When I’m gone, will you tell Urban Grange? Tell them you’re his son? They don’t know you exist. Tell them you do, that’s all.”

It had been a huge effort for her. She closed her eyes and rested her head back against the pillows. Michael thought for a moment she was dead, but the hand he held was not only warm but the fingers moved and pressed against his palm. He brought it to his lips and she smiled, a tiny ghost of a smile. Sitting at her bedside, still holding her hand, he thought about his dead, his poor pretty, red-haired mother, unkind though she had been; he thought about father-like Chris, Zoe’s husband, who always had time for the lonely little boy; Vivien, always Vivien, her death unbelievable for month after month, her ghost always with him.

A nurse came up to Zoe’s bed. He relinquished her hand and the nurse took it, feeling for a pulse. She smiled, told him to stay for as long as he liked and she would bring him a cup of tea. Hours went by, he didn’t know how many. The tea had been drunk and another cup brought, her hand restored to his hand. And he too slept, still holding it, to wake up and find the nurse there beside him.

“Your mum’s still sleeping,” she said, embarrassed because her words had called forth more weeping and driven him to touch Zoe’s forehead with his lips before turning away. He was back with her when she died on the following day, in the afternoon. She had had one last wish, uncharacteristic as it seemed, and he carried it out once he had registered the death and made funeral arrangements. The first thing he did when he reached home was to tell Jane she was dead.

“Oh, Daddy,” said Jane. “Would you like a hug?”

What can you say? It’s an offer you can’t refuse. He submitted to the hug. She told him she had passed the news on to her brother and Richard would be there next day. “To be a support,” she said.

Richard came, as cold and practical as his sister was emotional. Both returned for the funeral, sitting on either side of him in the crematorium, literally and physically supportive as each held an arm when the coffin disappeared into the fire.

Only when they were both gone and the bedrooms vacated was he able to creep up to the top floor and open Vivien’s door, doing so literally in fear and trembling. He stood there, his hand still on the door handle, telling himself to expect a disarrangement of the room, the bed disordered, the flowers he had left still there but drooping and dead in a vase half full of smelly yellow water. Don’t be angry, don’t upset yourself. He opened the door and, taking in the precious room, instead of feeling distress was moved by gratitude and, yes, by love. The dead flowers were gone, there was no mess, no dust, and lifting back the quilt, he saw Jane had even put on clean sheets. His good, kind daughter . . .

These days he was always crying. Making up for not crying much as a child when he had cause to cry. What he needed was someone to talk to, someone who would listen and be kind but not—that childhood word—soppy. Impulsively, he picked up the phone and called Daphne’s number. A voice that wasn’t hers said no one was available to take his call and to try again later.

T
HE CALL HE
should have made, though what “should” meant in this context was hard to say, was to his father’s luxurious sanctuary, Urban Grange. Michael didn’t even know where the place was. Asking Google to find it gave him something to do. That was easy. He hadn’t expected the website, page after page advertising the place. It was described as the most luxurious (there was that word again) haven for discerning seniors in the United Kingdom, a sanctum and
a retreat, a grace and favour residence of seclusion, an exquisite Palladian mansion in the Suffolk countryside. Photographs abounded in hot colour. The gardens overflowed with blooms or in other parts of the grounds with exotic trees and shrubs. There were gazebos, follies, temples, and even a ha-ha. Each suite had its own small garden, approached from a glazed-in patio furnished with cane, quilted silk, and silver. What did it cost? No mention was made of money. Money was vulgar. On the other hand, Michael thought, wasn’t it vulgar to show testimonials from satisfied residents? One was from a certain Dame Doris Perivale (“Lovelier than any home I have ever had”) and Prince Ali Kateh (“Number one in palace category”).

There was a phone number and an email address. Michael wrote the number down on the back of an envelope, the only piece of paper to hand, put it in his pocket, and forgot about it. But he didn’t forget to phone Daphne, and this time she answered.

J
OHN
W
INWOOD HAD
never been prone to worrying. If something to come was unpleasant, he pushed it out of his mind and ceased to think about it. This had not been possible in regard to his married (or unmarried) status. Back in the late 1940s it troubled him, if not all the time, for a few minutes and sometimes longer every day. His wife, Anita, was dead and he told people she had died. He was a widower. That was true and he knew it, none better, but he had no death certificate and never could have.

He wanted to marry again. He had no one specifically in mind but several he was considering. The war had been a widow-maker. Margaret Lewis’s husband had died in the Egyptian desert; another one called Beryl Nichols, who was left alone when Gary Nichols failed to return from Dunkirk; and a third called Rita, who served in the bar at the Hollybush and took off her wedding ring after Arnhem. Of these three, all of whom Woody more or less courted, only Mrs. Lewis had money—real money, that is.

He had sold Anderby and rented a small flat over a shop in Leyton. It was not the kind of place to which he could invite a woman. Certainly not Margaret Lewis, who lived in a big house in Chigwell. His money was running out but he stuck to his resolve never to work. His few years of labour in the factory and the abattoir had taught him never to get a job again but to find a way of living without employment. Another lesson he had learned was that a woman’s jealousy will cause her to behave recklessly and do things she would normally never have dreamt of. A man’s too, for all he knew. For all he knew because he had never been jealous. Rita was better-looking than Beryl, and both were better-looking than Margaret. She had lain too long and too often in the sun of Nice and Corsica when her husband was alive, and her face and shoulders were creased up and blotched with the remains of sunburn. She was over forty and putting on weight. But she had money. She had a fine big house and a fine big car and a large income, from what source Woody had been unable to find out until the jealousy began.

Their relationship had never been what Margaret called “an intimate one,” unlike the situation with both Beryl and Rita. He told Margaret she had driven him to spend nights with these two women because, he said, “a man has certain needs.” Jealousy consumed her. She was foolish enough to stand in front of a mirror, call him over, and point out to him the wrinkles and blotches while asking him if that was what sent him to those other women. Foolish perhaps but not silly enough to have any effect on Woody. He closed his eyes to what the sun had done and Margaret’s silliness and asked her to marry him. There would be no other women if she married him, no looking at other women. Of course she said yes, leaving Woody in a state hitherto unknown to him, anxiety. Suppose the vicar or the registrar asked to see his first wife’s death certificate? He continued worrying throughout his engagement, which, fortunately for him, lasted no more than six weeks. It was a vicar, not a registrar, and he didn’t ask.

Margaret had always had money, was born to it, and Major Rory Lewis had always had money. Neither of them had ever worked in the sense that Woody thought of work. So Margaret never asked him why he hadn’t a job or a private income. She assumed that everyone in her circle had money. Eventually he told her he had nothing, for the house money and the jewellery money had come to an end. Margaret, still in love, said not to worry as she had plenty for both of them. That was in their early days. She fell out of love and began to ration him. He had the Chigwell house and the Lagonda, and if she gave him ten pounds a week, wasn’t that all he could expect? There was no joint account and he couldn’t touch her private account. He sometimes thought of how he had strangled pretty Anita and sold her rings and necklace, but those days were gone. He was afraid that if he tried something similar with Margaret, the police would suspect him—they always first suspected the husband—and begin to investigate his past. They would ask when and where Anita had died and ask for her death certificate. His old trouble returned. There were no answers. The only thing was to carry on as they were, Margaret calmly happy, he with his ten pounds a week. An idea of taking some of Margaret’s jewellery and selling it flitted across his mind, only to be dismissed as impractical with a wife who was still alive and who had learned from being married to him to be suspicious of almost everything he did.