A Place in the Country (16 page)

“Thank you, Sarah,” Caroline said. “I know what you mean.”

“Never mind about your mother, Sarah,” Jesus said. “I'll call the pub company, tell them it's an emergency, they'll send someone over to supervise.”

“The tickets are electronic, they're already here,” Maggie told them. “And now here's another message.”

Caroline tried the coffee, pulling a face, it was so bitter. Weary, she pushed back her hair and went and stood behind Maggie and looked at the message.

Caroline, I've been too busy even to think, but trust me I was thinking about you, subliminally, and our evening together. Will be back Saturday. Can we have a repeat episode, maybe Sunday night?

It was signed
Jim (Thompson, in case you'd forgotten).

Caroline's mind was so far from the world of Jim Thompson and dinner parties and real life as it had been only a few days ago, it seemed like a fantasy. “I can't deal with that,” was all she said, so Maggie said
she
would, and sent a quick e-mail telling Jim that Caroline had been called back to Singapore and would be in touch when she got back. Maggie didn't think it her place to go into details. Later, if she wanted to, Caroline would tell him.

Weariness turned Caroline's limbs to liquid. The coffee had done nothing to offset the two brandies and for that she was thankful. All she wanted now was to lie down.

Jesus said he'd drive Sarah home, and Maggie walked Caroline up to her room. She waited while Caroline did the normal things everyone always does, even when they're dying inside from grief and anger. Normal things like brush her teeth and wash her face, take off her clothes, and hurl herself on the bed.

“Get under the covers.” Maggie picked up her clothes and put them on the chair. “And try to get some sleep. Sam's with Issy; she'll wake me if there's any problem.”

Caroline was glassy-eyed with fatigue and shock
. “Poor James,”
she said, still crying.
“Poor, poor James.”

 

chapter 37

Issy stared at the ceiling
for a long time before she got up the next morning, thinking about her father. She knew it was true and he was dead. She would never see him again. She was not crazy though; there seemed to be no more tears left.

Sam, lying on the bed next to her, said, “It'll be better if we get up, fix breakfast for everyone. It's something to do.” Issy put the kettle on while Sam burned the toast.

“It'll be okay, they'll never notice,” she said, scraping off the black bits before slathering on the good yellow butter from Ireland Maggie preferred.

The water boiled and Issy dunked an Earl Grey teabag in a large flowery Wedgwood mug that Sam told her was only used on special occasions. They both figured this was “a special occasion.” She put the tea and toast on a tray and carried it upstairs.

Caroline's door was open, as it always was, but Issy knocked anyway. “It's me,” she said in a very quiet voice.

Caroline pushed hair out of her eyes. “Breakfast. Issy, how lovely.”

Issy thought her mom looked terrible. She said, “I want to say I'm sorry.”

“Me too,” Caroline said.

“But I want you to know I meant what I said. I'll never believe Dad … did
that.
”

Caroline nodded, her heart was breaking all over again.

“I understand.”

Issy put the tray on the floor and went and sat next to her.

“It's the second hardest thing you've had to face in your entire life,” Caroline said to her. She took Issy's hand and they both sat looking straight ahead, not at each other.

“What now, then, Mom?” Issy asked, sounding resigned to her fate.

“We have to go to Singapore for the funeral. To say ‘goodbye.' We're all going. Sam and Maggie and Jesus.”

“We're finally going home,” Issy said, and a sense of relief swept over her.

*   *   *

Issy spent the entire flight
watching movies and reading magazines.

Looking at the others, she wondered how it was possible to feel so completely alone when your best friend was reclining in the seat right next to you, sketching on her iPad; and your mother was across the aisle supposedly reading gossip in
People
magazine even though her eyes were closed; and Maggie and Jesus played gin rummy silently. In fact the only sounds were from the smooth throb of the engines, and the movie on the screen set into the seat in front of her, and the quiet voices of the attendants checking if anyone needed anything.

Her eyes felt like they were boring into the back of her head from staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Despair, she knew now, was a physical presence. It was there, a dead weight pinning her to the comfortable reclining seat, like heavy hands on her shoulders.

She told herself this was not her mother's fault. Caroline had done her best, she and Mark had dealt with everything, and Mark would be there to meet them. “Mark will take care of you,” her mother had told her, even though both knew it wouldn't be the same as her father being there.

She wished Blind Brenda could be with her. Brenda was the love object in her suddenly loveless life. Also, though she had not yet told her mom, she had vowed never to set foot in that barn Caroline proposed to open as some kind of off-the-wall restaurant. She still believed if they had stayed in Singapore none of this would have happened; they would have had their same lovely home, her father would have talked over his problems; they would have found a way out. Her father would have told them he loved them, that he needed them. Then instead of shooting himself, which is what they told her he had done, he would have come home and they would have worked it all out. The three of them together. The family.

Why was she the only one who thought someone had killed James when it was clear as day to her. Her father hated guns, he never even kept one in the house, said they were weapons of war and violence and he would not permit them near his family.

“Family” had meant a lot to him, despite all the talk of the other woman. She remembered meeting “the other woman” that night in the hotel in Hong Kong. It occurred to her that a woman like that wouldn't think twice about murder because she had a heart made of ice. The Gayle Lee Chens of this world did
exactly
what they wanted. Still, there had to be a reason for murder; a “motive” they called it on the police procedurals she watched on TV. And she didn't know what that motive could be.

When they finally disembarked and stepped into the cool splendor of a spotless Changi Airport, Issy was just glad to feel she had legs again. First came immigration, then customs, and then there was a driver holding up a sign with their name.

A wall of humidity hit her as she climbed gratefully with the others into the white Rolls-Royce sent by the Raffles Hotel, where they were to stay.

Issy stared silently out the window, at the familiar city: at the river and the tall buildings with tiny gems of original colonial houses tucked between, at the streets of bungalows and open-front cafés and glitzy shopping malls; at the quays and bridges, the cricket field and the cathedral and the open markets. All Singapore's history and life was squashed into its less than 270 square miles. The faces on the streets were Malaysian and Indian and Thai and Chinese. If she opened the window she would breathe in the aromas of ethnic foods, hear the cries of the food hawkers and the seabirds, church bells and muezzins. All life seemed concentrated here, in her true home, Singapore. All except one.

Raffles was a cool white colonial-style haven set amongst courtyards and gardens. Its arched verandahs and covered walkways were dotted with high-backed rattan chairs and great swathes of brilliantly colored flowers. Issy had often been here, for Sunday brunch or sometimes for tea. She could almost believe her father would be waiting for them.

But of course he was not. This time it was Mark.

 

chapter 38

Caroline kissed Mark
and said an awkward thank you. It was strange, she thought, she should feel this awkwardness with James's good friend, but somehow, now, everything was askew.

Mark hugged Issy and Sam and shook Maggie and Jesus's hands, said jokingly he'd remember to call him Heyzus and not
Jesus,
and thanked them too, for coming to support the family.

Caroline said, “In fact, James did not have ‘a family,' except for us. He was an only son and both parents died early. They had never even got to meet me or their granddaughter.” She thanked God silently, they had also not lived to see their son self-destruct.

Her own parents were expected later that evening. She had begged them not to make the long journey from France but they'd insisted. “We need to be there for you, and for our granddaughter,” Cassandra Meriton, her mother, had said in that mind-made-up-so-don't-argue tone Caroline knew so well from her childhood. “We weren't there for your wedding,” her father had said, getting on the phone. “At least we'll be here for James and you this time.”

Mark had booked them into lavish suites with heavy silk curtains and plump brocaded sofas. A tray of fruit awaited and there were fresh flowers in heavy crystal vases. The bathrooms were sumptuous, all pale marble and Jacuzzi tubs and glass-doored showers, fluffy towels and perfumed soaps and lotions.

A waiter brought a tray with cool drinks, and Caroline told the girls to take them to their rooms and get some rest.

Mark was waiting by the window. Now he came over, sat beside her on the sofa and opened the waiting bottle of chilled champagne.

“This must be costing a fortune,” Caroline said.

He shrugged. “The business will pay.” He handed her the glass. She avoided his eyes, not really wanting to hear what she knew he was going to tell her, but she knew he had to tell her anyway.

“The coroner's verdict was suicide,” Mark said. “The police were thorough, they even looked into James's finances.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “There's nothing more to be done.”

Caroline said, “Issy thinks he was murdered.”

He shrugged again, dismissively this time. “That's ridiculous. Anyway, the case is closed. It's over. Let James rest in peace.”

He got up and began to pace the room. “I'll take care of everything,” he said. “The business end, the apartment … I'll sort everything out. I'll put aside personal things you and Issy might want, old things, photos, his Montblanc pen, his watch, cuff links—like that.”

“
Memento mori,
” Caroline said very sadly. She half-wanted to go back, see the place herself, but it would be too painful to take Issy there. “Don't they say you can never go home again?” she asked Mark wearily.

“There's nothing to be gained,” he said quietly.

And everything lost, Caroline thought. The end of an era.

“James took out a second mortgage on the penthouse,” Mark was saying. “I'll sell it for you, see what's left. There's not much from his part of our business. I'm afraid he gambled it away, took risks, gave it to that woman. Nothing I can do about it now.”

Caroline drained her champagne and put down the glass.

He looked at her. “The funeral's at eleven thirty.”

She sighed, thinking of the ordeal to come. “My parents arrive this evening.”

“Then we'll have dinner together, try to keep things civilized.”

Of course he was right. People had to be civilized when death entered the door. They had to behave, remember the good things, drink a toast to the deceased.

She felt Mark's eyes on her. “You going to be all right?” he asked.

She said, “I'm sadder for Issy than for James. She's the one who's really suffering.”

“I'll do what I can to help,” Mark said, and of course, Caroline believed he would.

 

chapter 39

Cassandra Meriton,
Caroline's mother, had always hated her own name. What were her parents thinking, calling her after a legendary Greek prophetess who had refused to submit to Apollo's advances? “I mean,” she'd said to her own daughter years later, “if they thought I might turn out to be a goddess they could have gone for Diana the Huntress, or Artemis, Apollo's twin sister, who seems to me to have spent her time lounging around with the girls and enjoying herself. That's why,” she added, “I called you Caroline, plain and simple. And why I always shortened my name to Cassie. And now Isabel—such a lovely name—has become Issy. We sound like a couple of martinis, a Cassie and an Issy, please…”

Her mother always made Caroline laugh. She brought joy into the room. Even now, arriving at the Raffles in a whirl of garment bags and gifts, Cassie Meriton brought smiles with her.

“Sweetie,” she said, dropping her parcels onto the floor and grabbing Caroline in her arms, squeezing her until she laughed in protest. “How wonderful to see you, though I'd prefer it wasn't here, like this.” She took in the luxurious sitting room. “Either Mark is doing you proud, or you've come into money,” she said, then looked sharply at her daughter. “James didn't leave you a fortune, did he?”

“I don't believe he did. Not with all the trouble he was in.”

Her father, tall, broad, the Panama hat he gardened in still clamped to his head, stepped in for his hug. He took off the hat first though.

“He wouldn't leave that damn Panama behind,” Cassie sighed. “It's become part of his bone structure by now.”

She went and sat on the sofa, patting the place next to her. “Come, sit by me, let's talk,” she said.

“Yes, tell us what's what, why don't you,” her father said.

Caroline went through James's story, telling exactly how he had died and the silk scarf tied around his head before he pulled the trigger.

“Mark believes he didn't want to mess up the boat. He was so neat, Mark said. Funny, but I don't remember him like that. James was never
neat
.”