(1998) Denial (16 page)

A wonderful smell was coming from the kitchen.

Prominently displayed on shelves was a wide range of three-dimensional puzzles. The clinically white walls were hung with modern paintings on small canvases. Intricately painted, complex abstracts, some with a nightmarish quality about them, others in brilliant blues, one in particular that reminded her of the calm beauty of a Hockney swimming-pool painting. She wondered which of the objects in this house reflected Michael’s taste and which that of his late wife.

The puzzles were his, he had told her, but whose were the paintings? In a way, she quite liked them, they were intriguing, a mixture of contrasts, like Michael himself.

Part of her was desperately curious to know more about Katy, yet another part sensed it was a subject best left alone.
In any event, on their previous dates he had seemed reluctant to talk about her. There was some terrible sadness or guilt there, with which he still did not seem to have come to terms. A photograph of her, on the mantelpiece above a beautiful, modern open fireplace, dominated the room.

She stood up, carried her glass of Californian Mondavi Fumé over towards it, and stared at it, a colour photograph in a silver frame, showing an attractive woman, with shoulder-length blonde hair, Ray-ban sunglasses pushed up on her forehead, sitting astride a powerful-looking red motorcycle.

Amanda peered closely at her face. She was beautiful, but there was a coldness in that beauty, self-consciousness – almost, she thought, hardness.

She wondered, suddenly, whether people who were doomed to die young knew it.

Michael had had a shower only an hour ago, but already he was hot and sticky again. The kitchen, which had been spotless this morning, was now in chaos.

HEAVEN IN A SHELL!

The caption rose up at him from the recipe page. Beneath was printed:
SKEWERED SCALLOPS WITH WARM BASIL DRESSING
. The photograph of what the finished dish was supposed to look like was marred by a large stain from the balsamic vinegar Michael had spilled on the page. He had torn the sheet from the Saturday
Times
a few weeks back, and now it was spread in front of him on the kitchen table. Alongside, he had the ingredients. He read through them again, one final check before he committed the dish to the oven.

He was in a minor state of panic.

Four large fresh scallops. Olive oil. Basil leaves. Four slices of prosciutto. One garlic clove. One small tomato. Balsamic vinegar. An assortment of mixed leaves and fresh herbs. White and pink rose petals. Two wooden skewers.

The photograph that had looked so tempting was going to be impossible to re-create. It wasn’t food, it was the Chelsea Flower Show on a plate. Not even his wooden skewers looked as good as the ones in the photograph.

And, as ever, the most important bit from the recipe was absent. Did you cook the scallops already wrapped in the prosciutto, or did you add the prosciutto afterwards?

He gave his mother, who was a brilliant cook, a quick, surreptitious call, keeping his voice low so Amanda couldn’t hear. She didn’t know the recipe, but suggested grilling the scallops first, then changed her mind, then changed her mind again. He wished he hadn’t decided to experiment tonight. Delia Smith’s old stalwart, grilled peppers with anchovies, would have been wiser, or gazpacho with prawns.

Since his medical-student days, Michael had been tearing out recipes, buying the ingredients and experimenting. In the past three years he had done little cooking for himself; he had lost his enthusiasm; there had been no one else to cook for. On Saturday nights with Katy, when they hadn’t been going out, he had taken charge of the evening meal. The love of food had been something they had shared together.

Since her death, he’d survived on canteen lunches at work, and microwaved supermarket meals at home.

Tonight, though, he had someone to cook for again, and he had been thinking about his menu since Wednesday. He wanted this meal to be perfect. It would have been far easier to have taken Amanda to a restaurant, but he wanted to show her this side of him; he was proud of his culinary skills.

He had been unprepared for his attack of nerves.

He had read recently an excerpt from a paper published in the
British Journal of Psychiatry
on esteem. Women had a higher esteem of men who cooked, and it heightened desire in them. The old hunter-killer thing; the man as
provider. Civilisation pulled skimpy camouflage netting over our primal roots.

He grinned, wondering how Amanda would have reacted if he had greeted her at the door in a loincloth, wielding a wooden club. Then he tugged on his oven gloves and checked the Rosemary Lamb with Redcurrant Sauce. The potato and parsnip cakes, snow peas and spiced carrot purée were already in the warmer.

Then he dived through into the living room to check on his guest.

Amanda, standing at the fireplace, was still holding the photograph of Katy in her hand, and did not hear Michael approach. Suddenly she felt a vice-like grip on her arm, and the photograph was torn from her hand.

‘Don’t touch her things!’

His voice was an icy command.

She turned, startled.

His face was like thunder and, for a moment, she was frightened of him. His grip was hurting her.

Then he released her, and carefully set down the picture.

She watched him in alarm. He turned to face her, as if shielding the photograph from her view, and gave an anguished smile, his flash of anger subsiding as fast as it had risen.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘I –’

‘It’s OK.’ She swallowed, watching him uncertainly. But he was calm now, back to normal.

He lowered his head. ‘Forgive me, I’m sorry, I just have this thing about . . .’

‘It’s OK, really,’ she said.

He stared helplessly at her, and suddenly she felt sorry for him. He looked so incredibly different out of the suits in which she had always seen him before, standing now in his white PVC apron with musical notes all over it, open red shirt and blue chinos. She liked him like this, he seemed much more vulnerable.

‘I need to move on,’ he said. ‘But it’s so damned hard.’ He
stared at the walls. ‘Sometimes I feel I’m living in a bloody mausoleum.’

She watched his eyes dart from painting to painting. ‘I like your paintings.’

‘Katy’s. She painted them.’

‘All of these?’

‘All the ones in this room, yes. She called this lot in here her Brainstate collection. Maybe these were how she saw me.’

‘She was very talented,’ Amanda said, feeling inadequate by comparison.

Michael was still embarrassed by his outburst. ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘But she didn’t believe it. She kept insisting it was just a hobby.’

Wanting to change the subject, Amanda said, ‘You sure there’s nothing I can do to help in the kitchen?’

‘Nope. All set, I’ll be with you in a tick.’ He went over to the open French windows and peered out anxiously. ‘You’re really happy to eat outside? Won’t be too cold?’

‘I’d
love
to eat outside.’

‘How’s your drink?’

Amanda held up her glass, which was half full. ‘Fine, thanks.’

‘You know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?’ he asked.

‘No?’

‘An optimist says his glass is half full. A pessimist says it’s half empty.’

‘My glass is brimming,’ she said.

The
Figaro
overture was playing on the CD. Michael listened to it and a surge of emotion lifted him. Why the hell couldn’t he have just let her look at the damned photograph? He hoped to hell he hadn’t blown it. He should have moved away from here, that was the problem. And he should have taken Amanda to a restaurant. Here, there was too much of Katy all around.

But he hadn’t wanted to sell the house. It would have been the final break with Katy and he hadn’t been ready to let go. Not until now. Not until this moment, with Amanda
sitting on the sofa and the overture of
The Marriage of Figaro
roaring in his ears. And in his heart.

Amanda’s hair looked freshly washed: it had a deep, silky sheen, prettier than he had ever seen it. Her face was even prettier too and he loved the clothes she was wearing: a white satin jacket over a black halter top, shiny black trousers, and high-heeled shoes that on someone less classy would have looked tarty, but on Amanda were just plain sexy.

He loved the way she smelt.

He grinned. Amanda lounging back on the massive navy blue sofa; the
Figaro
overture; the balmy summer air. This was a perfect moment. He raised his arms, closed his eyes for a second, and dreamily twirled his hands as if he was conducting the music.

When he opened his eyes again, she was staring straight into them. ‘I’d like to die listening to Mozart,’ he said.

Amanda considered her reply carefully. ‘Do you think about death a lot?’

‘All the time. You do, too.’

‘I do?’

‘Everyone does. Not consciously, but we do. It’s a fundamental part of the human psyche. Dag Hammerskjöld, who was Secretary General of the United Nations, once said, “There is no thought that we have, no action we take that is uninfluenced by how our mind views its destiny and our body its death. In the final analysis, our view on death shapes the answers to all the questions life puts to us.”’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘Totally. We are driven by survival instincts. Think of the decisions you have to make every minute when you’re driving, or walking down a street and wanting to cross the road. When you go to a restaurant and you look at the menu, you don’t just select the food that’s going to do the best job of filling your stomach. Your choice is going to be influenced by all kinds of thoughts in your head about diet, nutrition – about what is healthy to eat. About what food is
going to help you to live the longest.’ He looked at her quizzically.

‘I never thought about it.’

‘You don’t need to. Most of the time your brain does it for you.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Your little grey friend.’ Then he paused and said, ‘Forgive me for being angry. I didn’t mean it.’

She smiled at him. ‘I was silly.’

‘No, you were curious, which you have every right to be.’

He went back into the kitchen. Grill the scallops first, he decided, then roll the prosciutto around them. Live dangerously – what the hell?

Amanda sat down. Her arm hurt from where he had gripped it; it felt bruised. She had heard before starting research on her programme that psychiatrists were a strange breed. Several she had interviewed seemed desperately in need of treatment themselves.

Did Michael have a dark side? Or was this simply what the death of a loved one did to you?

Thomas Lamark was thinking about death, too. Earlier he had been thinking about white vans. Now he was thinking about Dr Michael Tennent’s death.

He had been thinking that vans were good in the daytime because no one noticed them. You were a plumber or a butcher or a printer or anything you wanted to be: you stuck your name on the side and no one looked at you twice. The same way that you didn’t look twice at the faces of bus drivers or men digging the road or sweeping the entrance to the tube station.

At night it was different. At night villains drove vans. You hung around in a quiet residential street at ten p.m. on a summer’s night and sooner or later some Neighbourhood Watch dingbat was going to phone the police.

This was why he had borrowed Dr Goel’s dark blue Ford Mondeo for tonight.

The Mondeo was now parked in Provost Avenue. He had a clear view of Dr Michael Tennent’s house. He also had a
clear view of Amanda Capstick’s Alfa Romeo. She had left the roof down. He presumed that meant she was not intending to stay the night.

A finger clicked in front of his face. Glenn Branson didn’t see it.

‘Hallo? Anyone home?’

Glenn did not hear the voice.

His eyes were watching Cora Burstridge on the television. But his brain was elsewhere. In a darkened room. A plastic Waitrose grocery bag. A note. ‘
can no longer look at myself in the mirror
.’

The words had become hardwired into his brain. He saw them in his dreams last night, and the night before. He saw Cora Burstridge’s partially eaten face. He would never forget those words. Ever.

‘Your tea. It’s on the table. It’s getting cold.’

He turned to Ari, blew her a kiss, he loved her to death, she had the patience of ten saints. ‘Two minutes, angel, OK?’

Sammy looked up from the floor, where he was constructing a Playmobil circus with all the concentration of a heart surgeon. ‘Is Mummy really an angel?’

‘To me she is.’

Glenn was amazed at the speed with which television had begun cobbling together Cora Burstridge tributes. He was watching one now, a string of clips. Dirk Bogarde had just been on, talking about what a true star she had been. And now here was a clip of the two of them, him dressed as an intern in a hospital ward with the young Cora Burst-ridge, her face a mass of scars.

‘Cheer up, old girl, have you right as rain in a few days,’ Dirk Bogarde said breezily.

She looked up at him. ‘I can no longer look at myself in the mirror,’ she replied.

Ari stepped between Glenn and the screen. ‘Want me to put it back in the oven? I think I’m starting to get jealous of your new girlfriend.’

Glenn did not hear her. He was transfixed.

‘Daddy, if Mummy is an angel, does that mean Jesus loves her?’

He did not hear his son either. He just heard Cora Burstridge’s words, on the screen, in the film
Mirror To the Wall
, made in 1966. It was about a model disfigured in a car crash. She becomes suicidal and is pulled back from the brink by a psychiatrist, played by James Mason, who gives her back her sense of worth and self-esteem, and in the end, marries her.

I can no longer look at myself in the mirror
.

The coincidence was freaky.

The video was running; he had started to record the tribute the moment he saw it. He stopped the tape and wound it back.

‘I cooked you steak, Glenn! It’s going to spoil.’