Banishing Verona (9 page)

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Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Banishing Verona
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Toby stared at her. She thought he was going to contradict her, tell her not to be so cynical about her beloved brother; then his eyes flickered. “I haven't thought about this in years,” he said, pulling his chair closer, “but once at university some money went missing from my room—twenty pounds—which was a lot for me then. I reported it to the hall porter and there was quite a fuss, the cleaners taking umbrage and my saying I wasn't accusing them, though of course I was. I remember Henry, lying on my bed, while I ranted on about how I couldn't live this way, suspecting everyone. Finally he said you have to let it go, Tobes, and took me down to the pub. He bought three rounds in a row.” Toby shook his head. “Of course I didn't suspect everyone. Henry was in and out of my room all the time.”
He set down his tea and tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it had suddenly shrunk. “I thought nothing Henry could do would surprise me.”
Verona stood up. “He cares about you,” she said, stroking his back. “He really does, but he lacks certain faculties. We're at his mercy when we forget that.” On the counter lay her Christmas present to Henry: a book of photographs by a famous French photographer, recommended by her former boyfriend, Jeffrey. She had bought it not so much for the glossy images as for the brief biography of the photographer, which described how, at the age of six, he had resolved never to grow up. Henry was the reverse—he had longed to be an adult—but he shared the same stubborn disregard for natural laws.
Toby squeezed her hand. “That new espresso machine looks like a spaceship. So forgive me for asking, but what are we doing here?”
“I thought we might find some clue as to where Henry's gone.”
“You mean like a ticket for Ibiza or a reservation for a hired car in the Orkneys?”
“Probably not, given that they've already searched the place.
But you and I know Henry better than anyone. He might have left something that will speak to us.”
He stood up. “Come,” he said. He led the way up the two flights of stairs to the top of the house and then—stopping in the doorway of each of the three bedrooms, the study, the video room, and two bathrooms—back down to the kitchen. “I wouldn't have a clue how to search all this, especially when I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Besides, as we've been saying, neither of us does know Henry quite as well as we'd like to think.”
She stared at him, beautiful, dependable Toby, less beautiful than when she'd first met him, more dependable. They no longer mentioned the nights they had shared a bed at university, affectionately but ineffectually, or his long-standing and, as far as she knew, unconsummated passion for Henry. Over fifteen years, Toby had been one of her closest and most constant friends and the only one who was in touch with Henry on a regular basis. Everything he said made sense except when she remembered switching on the light and seeing the men.
She was still staring at him when the phone rang. After four rings, Henry's voice came on, urging the caller to leave a message, promising nothing in return.
“Verona, George here. How's it going? We wouldn't have bothered you this afternoon if we hadn't searched Henry's hovel with zero results. But if you do come across anything, please get in touch. You know how to find us.”
 
 
The block of flats where Toby lived was so solid and decorous, with its wood paneling and leaded windows, that it was almost impossible to imagine any kind of bad behavior occurring within its walls. Nevertheless, Toby wedged a chair under the knob of the front door like people did in films, while Verona locked the windows and drew the curtains. Without consultation, she headed for his bedroom, rather than the futon in the study. They both put their mobile phones on the bedside table, and she added a glass of
water and the leather-bound book she had come across in the hasty search of Henry's desk that Toby had permitted after the phone call. For one stunning moment she had thought Henry kept a diary, but a quick glance revealed that this was a much older document, written in faded blue ink by their grandfather. She had flung the book, along with various bank and credit card statements, into a shopping bag.
Now, wearing one of Toby's shirts, she sat up in bed, opened the book to the first page, and read aloud:
This account of my life is for my granddaughter, Verona MacIntyre.
 
I was born in the town of Kendal in the Lake District in 1898. After several pregnancies that ended badly—one small stone in the churchyard, others too brief even for that—my mother was threatened with dire repercussions for any further attempt. She persisted, for which, I suppose, I ought to be grateful. In the heat of argument she would sometimes remind me of the act of heroism to which I owed my existence; of course it might equally be attributed to another kind of act on my father's part. I was christened Edmund Alfred MacIntyre and, for reasons that remain obscure, known as Jigger.
“Why have I never seen this? How did Henry get his hands on it?”
“I don't know,” said Toby wearily. He was lying beside her wearing a pair of dark-blue silk pajamas. “I don't know anything. Would you mind turning out the light?”
It was months since she had shared a bed, and in the darkness she was acutely conscious of his body a few inches away. She lay back, listening to his soft breathing and the grumbling undertone of traffic on the Marylebone Road. Just as she was about to ask if he was all right, he gave a small sigh.
“I'm hopeless in this sort of crisis,” he said.
“What I keep thinking is that I should have seen it coming. I
had plenty of warning.” At school, she told him, the English teacher had found Henry in the cloakroom, going through the pockets of the girls' raincoats. “I remember he made me stay after class. At first I was relieved when it turned out that Henry was the one in trouble, but Mr. Sayers was so serious I was scared. He said he thought Henry had been born without a conscience.”
Beside her Toby shifted. “I don't think I'd agree with that,” he said slowly. “No, Henry has a conscience. He just does a good job of ignoring it.”
Then he asked if he could feel the baby. Gently she placed his hand on her belly.
The next morning at the radio station, Verona's first interview was with a young man whose mother had been defrauded by her cleaning woman. “You have to understand,” the man insisted—Brian was his name—“Evelyn was like a family friend. She came to all the weddings and christenings and birthday parties. When I used to drop in on Sundays, which was her day off, I'd often find the two of them chatting away over the crossword puzzle. And when Mum went into hospital, Evelyn visited her every day. But the day after she died, Evelyn didn't answer the phone. We never heard from her again. After the funeral it turned out she'd taken over seventy thousand pounds.”
“But she loved your mother,” Verona suggested.
“I don't know.” Brian's protuberant eyes watered alarmingly. On television, tears could be effective; on the radio they were usually disastrous. “Six months ago I would have said yes, absolutely. They were inseparable. They were best friends. I can't believe that was all pretense. At the same time, year after year, Evelyn was steadily emptying my mother's bank accounts, and none of us had a clue.”
The next question on her list was, How much did you pay Evelyn?
The answer was sure to be incriminating—they had paid the beloved family retainer a pittance—but seeing his brimming eyes, hearing his bewildered tones, she said, “And do you know how Evelyn got the money?”
“That was easy. She paid all the bills, opened all the mail. My mother trusted her completely. She would have signed anything Evelyn asked her to.”
“I thought she was your mother's cleaner.” Over Brian's shoulder, through the studio window, she could see the producer, spreading her hands. Why wasn't Verona asking the real questions, the hard ones?
“Cleaner and everything else,” he said bitterly. “Don't misunderstand me. I wanted my mother to live forever, but we had an agreement that when she died we'd have money to help with our little girl. She's deaf and needs special care. Evelyn used to babysit for us.”
“I'm sorry,” said Verona. “We have to stop now. Thank you for talking to us today. Before Brian came into the studio, we spoke to a senior officer at the Metropolitan Police. Apparently, incidents of caretakers taking advantage of their charges are on the rise. Be sure to keep an eye on whoever is helping the older members of your family.”
She read the news and the weather, and by the time she emerged Brian had gone. Sometimes people lingered after their interviews, misled by her attention at the microphone. Then she had to pretend an urgent appointment and be politely vague about the possibility of future meetings. She made her way past the studios and cluttered cubicles to her boss's office. The angular, incessantly smiling Lois looked up from her desk and smiled even more broadly.
Before she could begin to shred the interview, Verona announced that she needed a few days off. “My blood pressure is a little high. They want to keep me under observation.”
“Oh, Verona,” said Lois, her smile fading, “why didn't you tell me sooner? Take all the time you need. Casey can do the show. You know, she'll be glad of the experience.”
The news flew across the office faster than Verona could retrace her steps, and every other person stopped her with advice and admonitions. Have you tried an aquarium, asked the research assistant. They're meant to be very soothing. Verona promised to investigate. She had intended to go straight to the underground station, but in the street she loitered indecisively beside the newsstand. Contrary to what she had told Toby that morning, she was afraid to go home, and she didn't feel safe at his flat either. At any moment his phone might ring, his door might open, and the men would be there with their questions and demands. Finally—the woman at the newsstand was darting her sharp glances—she crossed the road to the coffee shop.
She ordered a tuna sandwich and, choosing a table near the counter, tried to think what to do next. Instead she found herself remembering a conversation she'd had a couple of months ago with a girl she'd met in her midwife's waiting room. They had exchanged the usual questions about due dates and morning sickness. Then the girl, she could not have been more than seventeen, confided that her mother had died when she was a few months old; she had been brought up by her aunt. She was great, the girl said. I never thought of myself as not having a mother until this. She patted her precise bulge. Now I really, really wish I'd known her.
From her shopping bag she had produced a blue notebook. I'm writing stuff down, she said. So if anything happens the baby will know about me. She had held out the book until Verona realized that she was being invited to read it.
This is a record by me, Cynthia Stenning, of my actions and feelings after I stopped pretending I wasn't pregnant. Even though it's what they call a mistake, I want to say that it's the best thing that ever happened to me. If I was religious I'd say a big thank-you.
Your father, Eddie, says …
Before Verona could read further, the receptionist called her name. Your baby's very lucky, she told the girl, and was rewarded
with a shy smile. In the midwife's cozy office, she had been overwhelmed by gloomy scenarios. What will happen to the baby, she'd asked, if something happens to me?
You don't mean a good something, like winning the lottery, said the midwife, unfurling her stethoscope, you mean the other kind. Hopefully, your parents or a family member could adopt the baby. That's usually less traumatic for everyone. Or you can appoint a legal guardian. Tell me what you've been eating.
She had spent several evenings making lists of potential adoptive parents and eliminating them. Henry was out of the question. Toby, when she asked, said he'd love to be a godfather but he absolutely wasn't up to being a father—even for you, darling. The first two couples she picked had also said no, one nicely—they already had a prior commitment—the other less so. In the end she had asked her childhood friend, Lyndsay. She and her husband already had two children who were an excellent advertisement for Lyndsay's humor and creativity and Tom's interest in nature and sport. Besides how could they refuse, given that Tom was a vicar? Verona had intended to begin a notebook for the baby too, but that had never happened.
The door of the coffee shop opened and a woman came in wearing a shiny red macintosh, followed by two older men in suits. “Do you know,” the bald one was saying, “which common four-letter girl's name you just add one letter to and you get a completely different name?”
“Tuna sandwich?” said the waitress, and thumped it down.
What she needed, Verona thought as she started to eat, was a place to stay for a few days that had no connection with Henry or, if possible, with her own life. Between bites she got out her address book and turned the pages. They were filled with the names of people she knew, even some she liked, but as she read them, searching for a refuge, she felt the same futility as she had when considering her friends as prospective parents. Milly Cameron? No, even with the most robust woman, she would not feel safe. Ted and Jane Finch?
“Janet,” she called over to the men. They both looked up. “Sorry, I couldn't help eavesdropping,” she said. “
Jane
is the four-letter name, and you add a
t
to get
Janet.
”
“Well done.” The bald man beamed. “You'd be surprised how few people guess.”
Which means, thought Verona, that he must go around asking people about girls' names like Diogenes searching for an honest man. But her small success cheered her. And there on the next page were Emmanuel's details transcribed on their last day in Thailand. Of all her friends and acquaintances, he at once seemed the safest, precisely because they hadn't spoken since they parted at Heathrow. And he had a reassuring loutish quality. If he came home to find two strange men in his living room, he would not sit down and politely answer their questions.
“Well done,” the bald man cried again, as she left the coffee shop.
Everything conspired to get her swiftly home. In the underground the train was drawing up as she reached the platform; when she emerged from the station, the bus that passed the bottom of her street was waiting. She climbed the stairs at top speed, trying to outstrip her fear. Inside her flat she went cautiously from room to room, turning off the radios and the TV, until she was satisfied that she was alone. Then she put the chain on the door, pulled out two suitcases, and began to pack.
She didn't telephone Emmanuel until the taxi was on its way. If he wasn't at home, she would wait at a nearby pub. Anything was preferable to being here alone, dividing her anxiety between the door and the phone. As she dialed his number, she suddenly remembered how, giving him her own number, she had reversed the first and last digits. Happily he had not stooped to the same duplicity, and he answered on the second ring. “I'm in your neighborhood,” she said, trying to sound casual. “I thought I'd come by and say hello.”
“When?”
“Now, in twenty minutes, half an hour.”
He started to say that this wasn't a good time and she made the standard excuse about losing reception. Again, everything conspired to make the journey easy. The taxi was clean and the driver, save for the small moist sounds of sucking a sweet or a cough drop, silent. From the moment Emmanuel opened the door, however, it was apparent that he was not going to accommodate her. He looked so aghast at the sight of her suitcases that, in spite of everything, she almost laughed.
“You weren't just in the neighborhood,” he said.
“No,” she agreed. “For reasons I can't go into right now, I need a place to stay for a few days.”
“Not here,” he said quickly, stepping forward to fill the doorway. “Gina, my girlfriend, will be along any minute. She'd go nuts.”
I'm the one who's nuts, thought Verona. Why on earth would a man she hadn't seen in nearly a year, and had scarcely known then, take her in? “I understand,” she said, “but can I come in for a minute, while I figure things out? I don't want to stay with friends—I mean,” Emmanuel's frown made her add, “people I've known for a long time.”
He glanced up and down the street and, perhaps reassured by the empty sidewalks, relented. “Okay, but just for two ticks.” He bent to lift her suitcases. “You oughtn't to be carrying these around in your condition.”
Leaving the cases in the hall, unambiguously ready for departure, he showed her into a living room riotous with flowery wallpaper. Against the tangled mass of roses, the large-screen television and the posters of Thailand and Spain looked oddly subdued. Emmanuel offered neither a seat nor tea. “So you want to stay with a stranger,” he said.
He seemed different: smarter and better-looking than she'd remembered. She nodded, bracing herself to explain even as it dawned on her that he wasn't interested in explanations.
“Let me think,” he said. Suddenly exhausted, she sank, uninvited, onto the sofa and watched as he paced back and forth.
“I know,” he exclaimed, after half a dozen laps. “You need my mate Zeke. We work together. He's painting a house not far from here. The owners—their name is Barrow—are away on holiday. You can go and talk to him right now.”
Verona listened dully. Zeke, Emmanuel, who cared? She let Emmanuel call her another taxi. But when she suggested he phone Zeke, he shook his head and said he'd rather not; he'd taken the last week off work and was dodging his employer's phone calls. “Not that Zeke isn't a nice guy,” he said, “but he's a bit of an oddball.”
“What do you mean, oddball?”
Emmanuel pushed both hands through his shockingly well-cut hair. “He's not slow—I've never seen anyone figure out prices or measurements quicker than Zeke—and he knows every shortcut in north London, but he gets freaked out by things most people wouldn't even notice: like someone parting his hair differently. And he's hopeless at lies. He doesn't tell them himself, and he doesn't—”
Whatever else Zeke didn't was lost in the blare of a car horn. Emmanuel almost ran to pick up the suitcases. By the time Verona reached the street, he had them safely stowed and had given the driver the address. “Great to see you,” he said, edging toward the door. “Be sure to tell Zeke my back's wrecked.”
As the taxi neared the corner, Verona saw a woman with brightly colored braids falling almost to her waist striding down the sidewalk, but before she could discover if this was the tempestuous Gina, they were in the next street. The taxi was bracingly cold, and as it jerked along she tried to figure out her next move. In no possible world was she going to ask a man she'd never met for a bed for the night, but now it occurred to her that the fact that he didn't know she was coming gave her a certain freedom. Hadn't Emmanuel said the owners of the house were away? Perhaps if she pretended to know the Barrows. No, better still, pretended to be related, nothing too close like a daughter or a sister. After all she had no idea how old they were. But a cousin, or a
niece? Yes, that was it. She would announce herself as the niece and act bewildered that they hadn't told him she was coming to stay. “I'm the Barrows' niece,” she practiced.

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