Almost a Crime (64 page)

room: she loved it, the small sitting room, where guests

were not invited. It was the family’s own, not a playroom,

but somewhere they all shared, with its heap of games on

the shelves, the big television, the family library of books,

from Thomas the Tank Engine through Roald Dahl, to the

bound volumes of classics she had brought from her father’s

house. It was warm and comfortable, that room, all shades

of red and pinks, with hundreds of photographs; in the

winter, a real fire was kept burning in the pretty grate, and

whenever it was warm enough, the small french windows

were open, bringing the garden into the house. The

children would come and find them there, if they felt in

need of company, help or comfort in the evenings; it was

where family business was conducted, holidays planned,

arrangements discussed, reports read, Christmas presents

wrapped. A happy room: or so it had been.

Well, time to move on. No use looking back. Tom had

stolen the past as well as the future; and it could never be the same again.

She walked slowly up the stairs; the house was very

quiet. Tom’s study light was on, but there was no sound

from the room. Maybe he’d gone to bed, left the light on.

She pushed the door open gently; he hadn’t gone to bed,

but he was asleep, sprawled across the desk, his head on his

arms, his face hidden. He looked, in that moment, like a

large version of Gideon, the tumble of dark curls, the thin

neck, the long, slender hands. He did not stir as she went

across to the desk; his exhaustion was absolute. There was a

note on the desk: to Bob Macintosh. He had scribbled it

and intended to fax it.

‘Bob: about tomorrow. Dinner would be great. Just what

we need. Octavia can’t make it, something on at…’ and

then he had written ‘school’, crossed that out, ‘work’,

crossed that out too, finally ‘her father’s not well’, and had

started to write a new version. ‘Bob. About tomorrow …’

Something stirred in Octavia, something painful and

unwelcome, which she was still quite powerless to resist.

She couldn’t even put a name to it, give it a character of any

kind. Whatever it was, it prompted her to reach for a piece

of paper, and a pen, and to write on it, in her neat script,

‘Tom, I’ll come tomorrow night.’ She had no idea even

why she did it.

She went out of the study, closing the door quietly

behind her. She had no wish to be there when he read it,

no desire to see his gratitude. That really would be more

than she could bear.

A rumour that John Whitlam had found that there was no

reason, in his opinion, why the development at Bartles

Wood should not go ahead, arrived at the offices of the Felthamstone Advertiser on the Wednesday evening, just as the features editor was looking for a good story to lead his

weekend edition.

He phoned several people and received a firm denial, was

told that it was far too early for anyone to have begun to have made a decision, and then tried Bartles House itself.

Mrs Ford, the matron, said she would be the first person to

know if it was true, so clearly it wasn’t, and put the phone

down on him rather briskly. The features editor, whose

nickname was not Bulldog for nothing, then phoned the

one person from whom he knew he would at least get a

reaction one way or the other, Mrs Patricia David, and

asked her for her comment. Mrs David gave him a very

long one.

Octavia was just putting on her black dress - a low-cut one

that Tom disliked - to go out to dinner with the

Macintoshes when Pattie phoned with the news. She

listened slightly impatiently, trying to do up her zip with

one hand while tucking the phone under her chin with the

other. Tom, who had come into the spare room in search

of a book he had lost, automatically reached out and

completed the job for her. He noticed as he did so that she

was extremely warm, and that she was wearing a scent that

he disliked as much as the dress, both clearly and

deliberately chosen to displease him; nevertheless, despite

his dislike, he found both the warmth and the strong, rich

fragrance disturbing.

She scowled at him, turned away; he left the room.

‘Pattie, I’m sorry, I really can’t talk about it now. Look,

I’ll be down this weekend, we can meet then. Come to the

cottage, bring Megan if you like. Yes, of course. That’s

okay. ‘Bye.’

‘So,’ said Betty Carlton, looking at her husband shrewdly

across the supper table, ‘you’ve done it, then?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Got your planning permission. For Bartles Park.’

‘No, I haven’t. Nothing definite, nothing at all.’

‘Oh, really? So what was the long conversation with Mr

Ford about, then? I could have sworn I heard the words

“on account” mentioned.’

‘You’re imagining things, love. More’s the pity. This is

very good. How would you like a weekend in Venice in a couple of weeks? For your birthday?’

‘How would you like a weekend in Venice?’ said Nico

Cadogan. ‘No, forget I said that, it’s an appalling idea. Hot,

crowded, smelly. We’ll go in the spring. Tell you what, let’s

go to Glasgow. There’s a delicious hotel there I’d like to

take you to, and I adore Glasgow. All that wonderful

architecture. Do you know it?’

‘No, Nico, I don’t. And I really can’t go away this

weekend.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well…’

‘Right, I’ll book it.’

‘No!’

‘Next weekend, then?’

‘No, really, I can’t.’

‘Of course you can. I’ll book that one. And I’ll see you

tomorrow. For dinner. All right?’

‘Well - yes, Nico. Yes, all right.’

‘How would you like a weekend away?’ said Donald Ford.

‘When this is all over? Somewhere nice, somewhere like

Venice. We’ll be able to afford it.’

‘Oh, Donald, I can’t think about anything at the

moment, except getting through all this, all the upheaval

and upsets. I don’t know how we’re going to break it to

them, I really don’t if it ever happens …”

‘You’re not getting cold feet, are you?’

‘No, of course not. I just wish it was over.’

‘It won’t be over for a long time yet, love. Better make

your mind up to that one.’

‘Thank you, Octavia,’ said Tom. ‘Thank you so much for

that.’

He was rather drunk; they had just arrived home after the

dinner with the Macintoshes. Bob Macintosh had pushed

the boat out, as he had promised he would, taken them to the Connaught. It hadn’t been easy, but they’d got through it. Aubrey had been marvellous, making a fuss of Octavia,

devoting himself to her comfort, had engineered that he

was sitting next to her, with Bob on her other side. She had

been very good too; having decided to go, had applied

herself to the evening with her usual thoroughness, had

listened politely to Bob while he told her about their

proposed holiday in the Scilly Isles, admired the pictures of

the children, asked Bob if he would take a page in a charity

ball brochure. No one except him, Tom thought, watching

them, would have thought anything was amiss; no one else

would have noticed the fiercely hostile eyes as she

occasionally had to look at him, the way she refused all his

suggestions of what she should eat, the way, when he raised

his glass of champagne round the table, she alone did not

raise hers in return. Just for that one evening, through some

huge effort of will, the marriage had become apparently

whole again, no longer terminally damaged, but a positive,

constructive thing. Even in his gratitude, Tom had found it

disorienting, disturbing even: to know that so totally and

competently could hatred, mistrust, despair be disguised.

‘Thank you,’ he said again now.

‘That’s all right. I hope it helped.’

He stood in the hall watching her; as she passed him, on

her way to the kitchen, he caught the rich scent again. She

was slightly tanned, and her breasts, spilling out of the

vulgar dress, looked richer and fuller, not their usual neat

small selves. She saw him looking at them and frowned,

hurried on.

Tom sighed, started up the stairs himself; he was in his

study when he heard her pass the door.

‘Good night,’ he said. She was silent.

Later, he passed the spare room, on his own way to bed.

The light was still on, the door ajar. She was sitting up in

bed, reading; she was naked, but the sheet was pulled up,

covering her breasts.

He looked in. ‘All right?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said.

Upstairs, there was a sudden cry, then another: it was Minty. She looked at him, swung her legs out of bed,

pulled on a cotton robe.

‘Excuse me.’

He watched her go up, heard her soothing the baby,

heard her talking quietly to Caroline, then silence; he was

half undressed himself when he realised he had still not

found the book he had wanted earlier. He knocked on the

spare room door; she wasn’t there. He went in, was looking

through the books when she came in. The robe was

unfastened, swinging free; she was exposed to him, her

breasts, her stomach, her thighs…

Tom could not move or look away. He knew he should,

he knew he should say he was sorry, that he should hurry

from the room, that at the very least, he should stop staring

at her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he wanted her

more than at any time he could remember: a violent, sad

hunger for her filled him. He stood there like a drowning

man observing his own life and saw all the other naked

Octavias he had loved; the. one he had first seduced, first

loved, plumper, younger than now, uncertain, laughing,

nervous; the more confident creature she had become by

their honeymoon, drunk with pleasure and sunshine and

love; the swollen ripe-bodied woman bearing his children,

infinitely desirable and lovely; the thin, tautly sensuous one

she had become. And now, this new one: hurt by him,

damaged by him, still beautiful, still desirable, lost to him

irrevocably, and in love, it seemed, with someone else.

He managed it finally, said, ‘I’m sorry,’ hurried from the

room. When he turned to close the door, he saw that she

had not moved at all herself, but was standing carved into

time, utterly still, staring at him in return. And there was an

expression in her eyes that he could not begin to read or

understand.

Ian had still not rung, and it was Friday. Zoe could feel

herself getting very edgy. For two reasons. She couldn’t

quite remember when the people were coming back to Cleaver Square, but it had to be soon; and if they found the money missing, Ian would work out pretty fast that it was

her. Not that she had any money: she’d spent the lot and

done one bit of babysitting which earned precisely fifteen

pounds. Ten of which she’d already spent. But maybe she

could talk the bank into letting her have just a bit more. Or

borrow it from her mother. Or even Romilly. Anyway, she

would worry about actually getting the money when she

knew she was in a position to put it back. That was the

main thing. She could hardly do it without Ian. And

anyway, she was missing him. It wasn’t just the sex, he was

fun and funny. And it annoyed her that he’d been able to

dump her. She was the one who did the dumping: or

always had in the past. And she had nothing whatever to do

all weekend … She dialled, let the number ring.

‘Ian?’

‘Yeah?’ God, even his voice made her feel horny.

‘Look — I lost an earring. You haven’t got it, have you?

Silver, big hoop thing.’

There was a silence, then, ‘You know I haven’t got it,

Zoe. Don’t you?’

‘No,’ she said determinedly.

“Course you do.’ She could hear him smile. ‘How are

you?’

‘Fine,’ she said, trying to sound dignified.

‘Good.’

‘I just wondered — well…”

‘I got to go away this weekend,’ he said. ‘One of my

mates is having a stag do. So I can’t see you. Sorry. But next

weekend could be good. Last one in that house, matter of

fact. They get back middle of the next week. I’ll give you a

bell.’

Now all she had to do was get hold of a hundred pounds.

‘Please can we go and see the twins?’ said Dickon. ‘You said

we could, this weekend. Please.’

Sandy hesitated; the thought of facing Octavia was, for

some reason he couldn’t quite understand, very difficult. It

was absurd; here they were, the two innocent parties in this awful affair. Maybe that was why: the guilt was there, by

implication, almost infecting them. Or was it that they were

the two fools, the two duped fools? Either way it was

almost unbearable. On the other hand, it had to be got over

some time. Somehow.

‘Well, if she can have us,’ he said rather weakly.

‘Ring her. Ask her. Please.’

Octavia sounded quite pleased. She said she had a friend

coming. ‘And someone else, to do with this wood business.