The Girl Next Door (12 page)

He was nearly sixty and she some five years older when she died. It was cancer, in nearly all cases in those days incurable. The surprises started at her funeral. A mystery woman (so called by Woody) turned up and seated herself in the front pew, the one set aside for relatives and close friends. She was about fifty, he thought, and she reminded him of someone. He couldn’t think who. She turned up at the wine-and-sandwiches party Margaret’s friend from Chigwell put on, but since she didn’t introduce herself to Woody, he thought no more about her. Until he awoke in the middle of the night and realised that the someone the mystery woman reminded him of was
Margaret. Some niece? Perhaps. He sent himself back to sleep by thinking contentedly about Margaret’s shares, her bank accounts, this house, and the Jaguar which had replaced the Lagonda. Presumably, she had made a will, but it was of no importance. Everything would come to him.

The will turned up and was a rude and distressing awakening. Woody got the house, that was all right, but nearly all the money (the ten pounds a week continued) and the shares and the car and the furniture went to a woman Margaret hadn’t seen since (the will said) “she was taken from my arms at the age of three months and given to a couple called James and Stella Brotherton for adoption.”

Another woman who came to the funeral was Sheila Fraser, even richer than Margaret. Woody, no one called him that anymore, did his usual researches and discovered the extent of her wealth. She wasn’t pretty or clever and she was obsessed with natural history. They had almost nothing in common, but she pointed out to him the distressing incidence of hedgehogs among the road kill and made him promise to remember the Hedgehog Trust in his will. He was bound to die first as he was thirty years her senior. But he didn’t, of course. He saw to that. She had a miserable life with him but she never told him so and he never noticed.

12

F
ENELLA GOT COLD FEET
. That wasn’t what she told her mother. It wasn’t suitable, she said, for a granddaughter to tell her grandmother such things.

“But it’s all right for a daughter to tell her mother?”

“It’s a question of age.”

“Well, thanks for giving me back my youth.”

“You know what I mean, Mum,” said Fenella.

At least Judith wouldn’t have to look after her grandchildren and maybe she wouldn’t tell her mother. Maybe the occasion wouldn’t arise. She would have to wait for a suitable moment, some mention for instance, of how happy Alan and Rosemary’s marriage had been as against that of people who lived together without marriage, a common subject of conversation. But, no, that wouldn’t do. If perhaps her mother were to say that she was worried about her father, suggest he was becoming senile? It would be awkward and perhaps ineffective. She would, she decided, trust to the inspiration of the moment.

Also to be thought of was what Rosemary would do. Have hysterics, cry, or even be silenced and tell Judith to go away, get out of her house, how dare she say such things about her father? It was a
long drive from Chiswick to Loughton, and Judith and Maurice had often grumbled about it, but this time it seemed to her short. The pleasant hills and green folds of the forest were upon her within not much more than half an hour, and she was soon driving up the High Road. Many times had she done this since she had first learned to drive at seventeen; everything was familiar to her—for this part of Loughton hadn’t changed much—the Lopping Hall and the old police station, and turning off down Station Road, St. Mary’s Church ahead. She was suddenly seeing her mission as serious, not the rather awful joke it had at first appeared to her but a matter so serious that even at this late stage it might break up her parents’ marriage. Her children’s
grandparents
?
Was it possible? She drove past her old school, which she had walked to every day in the days when teenagers thought nothing of walking long distances. Her mother had fetched her in the car when it rained.
Sometimes, on the mornings her father went to work later than usual, he and she had walked down together and parted at the school gates, he going on alone to the station. She drove on up Alderton Hill, at the top turning left to her parents’ road, down to her parents’ block of flats that hadn’t been there or even thought of in those days. She parked in the designated slot they hadn’t used since they got rid of their car and looked up to their windows. Her mother had come out and was waving to her from their balcony.

“Is Fenella all right, darling?” asked Rosemary when she opened the door. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you of course, but I did wonder if Fenella was unwell and was hiding something from me.”

“Well, I’m not hiding anything from you, Mum.” It was true or soon would be. “Fenella is fine and so are the children.”

“They’re so sweet and good,” said Rosemary incredibly. “I’ll make the tea straightaway.”

“Mum, would you mind awfully if I had a drink instead? Just one because I’m driving. But if I could have a glass of wine . . . I’ll fetch it.”

The possibility had only just occurred to Judith, and once it had occurred, as is often the case when an unprecedented alcoholic drink is in prospect, couldn’t be resisted.

“Of course, darling. Why on earth not?” Then Rosemary proceeded to say exactly why on earth not. “It’s just that you
are
driving and it’s better not to drink at all. Anyway, don’t you think it’s a good idea to restrict one’s drinking to certain hours and to stick to it? That old saying about waiting till the sun is over the yardarm isn’t a bad principle.”

But Judith was already fetching herself a large, full glass of Pinot Grigio. She sat down and gulped down more than a large sip and nearer a swig.

“My goodness, you were thirsty, if that’s the word.” Rosemary began on the wedding, though they had exchanged their individual opinions of it at least twice since the event. Judith’s verdict on the copper-coloured silk suit was again invited, and Judith again said it was lovely and much admired. She was starting to feel sick and drank some more wine, not the best remedy.

“Are you all right, Judy?”

“Mum, I’m fine. Tell me something. Where’s Dad?”

“Why on earth do you ask?”

“I’d just like to know where you think he is. Sorry, I’m being a bit clumsy. Would you mind telling me where he is?”

“Now, Judith, I did try to warn you. I think that wine is going to your head. It’s really affecting you. You’ve drunk half a large glass in two minutes and it can’t be good.”

Judith thought, I could give this up, I could say I’m a bit drunk, I’m sorry, let’s change the subject. But there was no subject as yet.

“Mother, listen to me. I am serious, very serious. Do you know where Dad is now?”

It had reached Rosemary at last. She creased up her eyes, held her mouth open before she finally spoke. “Yes, of course I do. He’s gone to see Michael Winwood up in town somewhere.” Her voice
faltered. “You won’t know him, he was a childhood friend. One of those we’ve got to know again over that ghastly hands business.”

“No, he hasn’t. I’m sure he hasn’t. Phone this Winwood man and find out.”

“Oh, Judy, I couldn’t check up on your father.”

Judith decided after another swig of wine that she had better come straight out with it. “Freya and David saw him with a woman in a restaurant in St. John’s Wood. It was about a month ago. They were holding hands. When they left, he had his arm round her. I’m sorry to tell you like this, but I don’t know how else to do it, and I think you have to be told.”

Rosemary sat quite still, then she began shaking her head. The head-shaking went on so long that it became alarming. When she spoke, her voice, quite unlike her usual tone, was high-pitched, almost squeaky.

“It must have been someone else. Not your father, it couldn’t be your father.”

“Tell me this Winwood man’s number.”

It was doubtful that her mother would obey but she did. She took the directory out of a drawer, lifted the handset off the rest, and handed it to her daughter, mouthing the number silently as if some spy might be listening. Her hands clenching, then twisting in a wringing gesture, Rosemary sat waiting. For someone to answer or perhaps in hopes that no one would?

“Mr. Winwood? . . . This is Judith Hayland, Norris that was. I believe my father is with you. May I speak to him?”

Judith was as certain as could be that her father wasn’t there and he wasn’t.

M
ICHAEL
W
INWOOD SOUNDED
as surprised as she had guessed he would be, but not suspicious. And after she had put the phone down, he still suspected nothing. Infidelity and its deceit and strat
agems didn’t come within his experience but that of his clients. This was an area of innocence for him, and if he wondered a little, it was only to recall that if Daphne had agreed to his visiting her today, he wouldn’t have been at home to receive Judith Hayland’s call. But as the day passed, their brief conversation recurred to him, and later he thought it a little odd that Alan Norris, who had never been to his house, to whom he must have given his phone number but certainly not his address, could have told his daughter that she would find him here. They were not friends, they had met only once—that time in George Batchelor’s house—since Michael’s father threw them out of the tunnels sixty years before. He didn’t want to think of his father, that immortal creature who seemed superhuman in his refusal to die. Michael had still not phoned Urban Grange, though the piece of paper on which he had written the number was still in his pocket, crumpled through frequent handling.

B
EFORE SHE BROKE
the dire news to her mother, Judith had given some thought to the possibility of her tears, hysterics, stony silence, or rage, but none to what would happen next. Rosemary might want to run away, come home with her, send for Judith’s brother, Owen, or send for a doctor (was that possible these days?) or more likely a solicitor. But all she said was “What am I going to do?”

“Well, nothing, Mum. What can you do?”

“I can’t really believe it, you know. Not your father. It’s going to turn out that this woman is a doctor, some sort of specialist, more women than men are these days. He’s been consulting her about something serious, he went to hear the news of some scan or other he’s had, and the news was so good he took her out to dinner and they celebrated. That will be it.”

Judith had never known her mother to be so inventive. It was plausible, but it wasn’t true.

“He didn’t tell me because he knew it would worry me,” Rose
mary said.

Then why didn’t he tell you afterwards? Judith wanted to ask, but knew her mother would only have an alternative explanation to put forward. It made Judith speculate as to what her father would have invented to convince her. He had more imagination than she and might even at this moment be sitting in a train elaborating some fiction. It was getting on for seven. Judith would very much have liked another glass of wine, but if she did, she dared not drive home. Wait, leave the car here and take the tube? But to be here when these two confronted each other? No, absolutely not. She looked at her silent, rigid-faced mother and took note of what she generally ignored or never saw at all: how wrinkled her face was, how sunken her eyes and hooded their lids, her jawline drooping, her upper lip clustered with parallel vertical lines. The first thing you noticed about her hands along with the corrugated nails was the overlay of branched purple veins. Veins too pushed out the thin fabric of her stockings. She was old. Things like this didn’t happen to old people, but evidently they did.

“When do you expect Dad home?”

Her mother seemed to have forgotten all about the mysterious doctor. “Will it make any difference what time I
expect
him?”

“Oh, Mum, would you like me to stay?” Judith said it because she knew she ought to. The prospect was awful. “I could phone Maurice. I could leave the car here.”

Rosemary said suddenly, “What did she look like, this woman?”

“All Freya said was that she was tall and dark and—well, she said ‘quite old.’ ”

“I see.” Rosemary looked as if she did see. “Is that supposed to make me feel better, that she’s old? It makes it worse. No, I don’t want you to stay, darling. I’ll see him alone.”

In the past few minutes Judith’s old mother had not so much grown older, she had grown up. At her age she had at last seen what life was about.

W
HILE HIS DAUGHTER
was checking up on him, Alan was in bed with Daphne. They had been there since late morning, apart from a break for lunch at Carluccio’s, but had returned for more love-making and then sleep. He went downstairs in the evening and fetched a bottle of champagne he had put on ice in the afternoon and cut two large slices from the carrot cake he had bought while they were out. They loved carrot cake—it was one of the many things they had in common—and, both thin, never thought about their weight. Too old for that nonsense, said Daphne. The champagne was drunk, the cake was eaten, and at nine Alan said he’d better go. God knew, he didn’t want to but he’d better. Daphne put on a dressing gown and fetched him a key to her front door—three keys rather, as it was always well locked up.

“You may need it,” said Daphne. “I’ve had a premonition.”

“Doesn’t sound like you.”

“Ah, but it is. Remember I used to be a fortune-teller.”

He thought of that when he was in the tube, precisely when the train was passing through Snaresbrook. Up there was his old school, and why he was remembering that he didn’t know. What had she foreseen? Nothing. He felt the keys in his pocket as once he had felt her card. It was ten thirty when he got out of the train and he was tired. The walk home to Traps Hill was shorter than any Loughton walk he had taken in the past, but even when they lived in Harwater Drive right at the top of Church Hill, he had never thought of taking a taxi. He was older now and a taxi was waiting. But still he walked, and as he walked, he thought of his past life as drowning men are said to do: the tunnels, schooldays and university, and then Daphne, always Daphne, parting, and then Rosemary and marriage, children and grandchildren and retirement. How we grow away from our children, he thought. He cared little what his children thought of him now. They probably loved him in a remote kind of way. Did he care what Rosemary thought? What he wanted was what most men want, and it came to him as a devastating truth. They didn’t want
trouble, that was it, they wanted life to be without trouble, to have peace, and that was odd in the far more warlike of the sexes.

Rosemary would be asleep at ten to eleven. She always was. He closed the front door softly as he always did. She was sitting in the living-room with the door to the balcony open. A half-empty glass of red wine was on the table in front of her. Some tremble at moments of anxiety, some feel sick, some flush; Alan turned white.

“I need a drink of water,” he said, then went into the kitchen and filled a glass.

Rosemary said nothing. She sat, holding her wine but not drinking.

“You had better say what you have to say,” he said.

She set down her glass and looked into it, her hands round the stem. “Why her? That’s all I want to know. If it was someone young, I could understand, but why her? Why that old witch?”

He didn’t ask how she knew. Maybe she had talked to Robert Flynn. It didn’t seem important. “Insults don’t help.”

“There’s another thing I want to know. Have you had relations with her?”

That was exactly what he expected her to ask, the very words. He could have written the script for her. Over the past weeks, months now, he had told so many lies that he was in the habit of it. He was so practised that he could easily tell another. He could easily say no, he had betrayed Rosemary so often; was he now to betray Daphne? “Oh, yes,” he said. “Of course.”

She lifted her head, stood up, and cried out, “How could you? How could you?”