Almost a Crime (93 page)

money in the trust fund.

Dear Octavia

I have looked into the matter of the monies in your

BVI trust fund, and it would appear that two

payments of ten thousand dollars each were made

over the course of the past six weeks. There is no

record of where they came from. A nice surprise for

you, perhaps! I have spoken to your father about the

house and everything is in order, but no doubt he will

have told you that.

So glad you enjoyed your week with us.

Come back soon.

Nicholas.

‘How extraordinary,’ said Octavia.

“What’s that?’

‘Well — someone has paid twenty thousand American

dollars, that’s - God, that’s about fifteen thousand pounds,

into the BVI trust fund. The one my father set up for me.

Ages ago. It’s rather odd. I mean, Daddy didn’t put the

money in. I asked him. So who

‘Very odd,’ said Tom. ‘I shouldn’t worry about it, if I

were you.’

There was something in his voice, in his attitude, that

made her suddenly suspicious.

‘Tom?’

‘Yes, Octavia?’

‘Tom — you don’t know anything about this, do you?

About the money? You do? Who put it there? What’s it got

to do with you?’

‘I put it there,’ he said quietly.

‘You? But why, how?’

‘I wanted you to have a bit of money that would be

safely yours,’ he said finally. ‘If I’d gone bankrupt, you’d

have lost an awful lot as well.’

‘But you didn’t have any money! You told me you were

absolutely desperate.’

‘I know. But I cashed in a couple of insurance policies,

paid the money into the trust fund. It wasn’t much, but it

was the best I could do for you. I thought it was much

better you had it than the bailiffs or whoever.’

‘Oh,’ she said. She felt absurdly distressed; she wasn’t sure

why. Certainly disturbed. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You weren’t awfully keen on talking to me at the time,’

he said briefly. ‘Anyway, there was arguably some virtue in

your not knowing. If the crunch had actually come.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said again. ‘Well, I’m very - very

grateful. Thank you.’

‘That’s all right. In the event, touch wood, you didn’t

need it. I might even take it back.’ He smiled at her, went

back to the paper.

‘Yes. Yes, of course you must.’

And then she’d take it back again; when the divorce settlement went through. She felt very confused suddenly;

confused and upset.

‘I think I’ll go and see Minty,’ she said.

‘Yes, do. She was wailing just now.’

Halfway up the stairs, she remembered she’d been going

to tell him about the divorce. Well, it could wait. A bit

longer wouldn’t hurt.

‘Hi, Mum!’

Marianne looked up. In front of her, framed in the

doorway of her sitting room, stood a tall, immensely thin

figure, dressed in ragged jeans and a tie-dyed shirt. Its rather

long straight hair was streaked ash blond and it was

extremely tanned and rather dirty looking. But through the

tan and the dirt shone a wide, joyful grin showing a set of

unmistakably American-nurtured teeth.

‘Marc! Oh, my darling!’

She flew at him, hugging him and kissing him; found she

was crying, stood back, wiping her eyes, laughing at the

same time.

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘easy, Mum. Take your tie off.’ It was one

of his favourite expressions

‘But what’re you doing here? I thought you were in the

Himalayas.’

‘I was. But I wanted a bath and some English grub.

Wanted to see you as well, of course, and I thought I’d give

you a surprise.’

‘Well, you certainly did that. Oh, I’m so pleased to see

you, you can’t imagine, it’s too good to be true …’

Later, sitting watching him as he devoured a huge plateful

of chicken and chips and an even huger one of strawberries

and ice cream, she said, ‘If someone had said to me this

evening I could have anything in the world, I’d have said I

wanted you to come home.’

‘Well, that’s good,’ he said, grinning at her again. ‘I didn’t think you’d be exactly upset. But I was afraid you might be with old Felix.’

‘Er - no,’ said Marianne. ‘Not tonight. Or any other

night, for that matter.’

‘Yeah? All washed up? I can’t pretend I’m too upset,’ he

said, ‘but I’m sorry if you are.’

‘Thank you,’ said Marianne. ‘I am. Very.’

Octavia went down to the kitchen to make herself a

sandwich. Tom was there, reading the papers. She looked at

him slightly warily.

‘What are your plans for the evening?’ he said politely.

‘I was going to work, but—’ She hesitated. It was

actually a very good time: the twins still away, it would be

easy to talk, get the initial and inevitable unpleasantness

over, make plans.

‘But what?’

‘Well, I do want to - to talk to you about something.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. I…”

‘I wondered if it would be all right if I went out this

evening.’ Caroline had come into the kitchen, wearing her

smarter clothes and a slightly aggressive expression.

‘Caroline, of course you must go.’ Octavia smiled at her.

‘And why don’t you take tomorrow off as well?’

‘I did actually agree with you that I should take the

whole weekend anyway,’ said Caroline. ‘Perhaps you’d

forgotten.’

‘Oh, dear. Yes, obviously I had.’

‘As you’ve been away, and—’

‘Yes, yes, Caroline, of course. Do you want to leave now

for the weekend?’

‘It’s too late for that,’ said Caroline. ‘I had hoped to, as a

matter of fact, but—’

‘Caroline, I was here,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve been here since

five. You could easily have gone, you should have asked.’

‘I know you were here,’ said Caroline graciously, ‘but

Minty was very upset. Perhaps you didn’t notice.’

‘Caroline, of course I noticed. But I didn’t want to interfere.’

‘Well, I assumed that must be the reason. That you didn’t

come up. Anyway, it was her mother she really wanted needed.

As I said to you, Octavia, she’s still very unsettled

from your being away. It was a pity you had to go straight

back to work, a whole day at home with her—’

‘Yes, I realise that, Caroline. But I had a great deal of

work to do in the office. And of course we did have Sunday

together.’

‘I suppose so. And the twins will be back tomorrow and

they always cheer her up. Hopefully a family weekend will

settle her. And them. I expect they will have missed you,

too. I presume there won’t be a proper family holiday this

summer?’

‘Not now, I’m afraid,’ said Tom briskly, ‘as it’s September

the first on Sunday. Summer’s over, as well as the

opportunity.’

‘Well, at least the twins have had a proper break. We all

need one, don’t we?’

‘We do, Caroline,’ said Octavia. ‘And that reminds me,

we must arrange your holiday. Late September, you usually

like, don’t you?’ (Best to get that over before the inevitable

turmoil of the divorce, she thought.)

‘I do, yes. Well, I must go, I was hoping to catch the

cinema, but it’s a bit late now.’

‘Oh, not really,’ said Tom. ‘Only just after eight. Do you

want me to run you down, save you parking?’

‘No, no, it’s quite all right. I think, actually, I might just

go for a walk down to Kensington Gardens, it’s such a

beautiful evening.’

‘Fine. ‘Bye, Caroline.’

As the front door closed finally behind her, Octavia looked

at Tom. He was a rather odd colour; he looked back at her,

exhaled loudly and started laughing.

‘God,’ he said, ‘that was a tough one. Six of the best,

wouldn’t you say?’

‘A dozen, more like it,’ said Octavia. She started to laugh

as well. ‘Look at the pair of us, sitting here, feet together,

hands folded, in ticked-off mode. I just didn’t dare even

look in your direction when she started about the twins

missing us. I wish!’

‘Actually,’ said Tom, ‘the most priceless moment was

when she said I didn’t care about Minty crying.’

‘Did she say that?’

‘Not in so many words. But it was printed out on the

wall. In twenty-four-point letters.’

‘Well, we’d better write a hundred lines,’ said Octavia,

still laughing. ‘“We must not neglect our children.”’

‘Go on, then. I dare you. And leave it out on the table.’

‘I’m not going to. You do it.’

He got up, fetched some paper and a pen, sat down again

next to her and started writing.

‘Tom, she’ll leave! You’re not to. Tom, don’t…’

She was leaning just slightly against him, looking at what

he was writing, still laughing; relaxed, not watchful of

herself, of what she was doing. ‘Here, you need two pens.

Then you can write two lines at a time.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, that’s what I used to do.’

‘Octavia, I’ve known you all these years, and I had no

idea you ever did anything naughty to write lines about.’

‘Of course I did.’

‘What was the worst?’

‘Oh, God. It was terrible. It was at my day school. Well,

me and my friend—’

‘I didn’t think you had any friends. I thought everyone

hated you.’

‘I had one. Horrid girl, fat like me. We used to climb up

on each other’s shoulders in the lavatory, and look over the

wall down on the girl in the next one. It was so funny, such

fun.’

‘How disgraceful. I’m appalled.’

‘Anyway, one day, it was a prefect. She’d just pulled

down her pants and was settling her great white bum on the

seat when I giggled. She looked up, and — well, that was it.

We had to write a hundred lines. “I must not look at people

sitting on the lavatory.” Even though I was a bit scared, I

still giggled every single line.’

‘Well, this is a new facet of you, I must say. Dear, oh

dear. I’m married to a voyeur. I had no idea.’

‘Sorry, I should have told you before.’

And then he looked down at her, suddenly serious and

said, ‘It’s nice to see you laughing. So nice …’

And she realised how closely she was sitting to him, and

pulled just very slightly away, realised also that it was

actually quite difficult to do so, that she didn’t want to lose

the warmth and the comfort. And then he leaned towards

her and kissed her and, eased by laughter, she did not

immediately pull away. And when she did, she realised that

there was the stillness in him again, the intense, hungry

stillness; and, somehow, some strange treacherous piece of

desire stirred in her in return, and it was as if her mouth,

and indeed her body, did not in any way belong to her, and

she watched it, felt it even, observed her mouth returning

the kiss, gently at first, then more urgently, and his mouth

became harder, more probing on hers: and she felt the

probe echoed deep within her body, warm, pushing, urging

through her; and even as she knew she mustn’t do it, that it

was lethal, a betrayal of her very self, she put her arms

round his neck and pulled his face down to hers and kissed

him harder; and when he pulled back just a very little, and

said, ‘Upstairs, then?’ she saw his eyes on her very brilliant,

and perhaps, yes, yes, there were tears in them, and ‘Yes,’

she said, feeling her own eyes filling in sympathy, ‘yes.’ And

then, dizzy with confusion, shocked at what she was doing,

recognising the danger of it, even as she wanted him more

than she could remember doing for a very long time, she

took his hand and followed him upstairs.

As she pulled her clothes off — half amused at the haste,

the urgency with which she was doing it - she knew that

she must, she had, to stop — and knew that of course she

couldn’t, that she was as helpless to resist the demands and commands of her body as she was a while later to stop the great surging rollercoaster of her orgasm. She lay there,

quite out of control, moving, pushing, working with and

round and on him, kissing him greedily, frantically, feeling

his hands on her, taking them, guiding them to where she

needed them to be, moving her own on him, remembering

with her body as much as with her head how perfect, how

driven, how controlled, sex with him could be. And as the

lightness and the brightness began, as she fought towards it,

pulled back again to prolong it, as she mounted finally the

piercing jagged heights of pleasure, fell noisily grateful into

the fluid ease beyond it, she heard him say, just before he

came himself, ‘I love you,’ and realised properly then, a

rush of panic interspersing the peace, what a horribly

dangerous thing she had done …

It had been a very beautiful day. Well, it was August,

everyone said, albeit the very end of August: all the more

unusual actually, everyone then said. August usually went

out, along with the summer, in a great driving sheet of rain.

It was a wonderful bonus, anyway; everyone agreed they

should enjoy it.

In London, the Fleming family were in their garden, the

twins rather over-confident and full of themselves at

accomplishing their first holiday away from their parents,