Creeping Ivy (11 page)

‘I wish it hadn’t taken something as bad as this to make you come back. Come on in.’

‘You don’t mind?’ She hovered on the step, very conscious of the four and a half years since they had last met and everything she had thought about him then.

The rage she had felt when she heard he was insisting on divorce even though Antonia was pregnant had shaken Trish so badly that for a long time she had not wanted to see him. Whatever there had been between him and Antonia, the child at least was innocent; and yet it was she who was going to have the worst punishment if she had to grow up never knowing her father.

Even so, Trish’s greatest fury was reserved for Ben’s new wife. If it had not been for her, he’d never have behaved so far out of character. Trish was sure of that, if of nothing else.

Bella was a child psychotherapist – said to be good at her job – and that seemed to make it even worse. She of all people should have known what effect her selfishness would have on Ben and Antonia’s child. In Trish’s view, Bella should have given him up as soon as she heard about the pregnancy, however much it cost her.

‘Having you in the house again?’ said Ben cheerfully. ‘Far from it. Come and meet Bella. You’ll like her. Bel? We’ve got a visitor.’ Mad Daisy came flying out of the kitchen, barking her head off, ahead of a comfortable-looking woman in a large flowered skirt and loose cotton sweater. Trish, who had forgotten quite how terrifying the dog could look and sound, shrank back.

‘Daisy, hush up, will you!’ said Bella in an accent that was still distinctly American in spite of the nine years she had spent in London. She tucked her artfully straggled blonde curls behind her ears and looked up at her tall husband. In her tilted head and questioning smile as much as her pink cheeks and meadow-like skirt, Trish recognised the embodiment of the fantasy Antonia had described earlier in the day and wondered if it was as fake as it looked.

‘Bella, this is Trish Maguire, the lawyer. You’ve heard me talk about her.’

‘Sure,’ Bella said, straightening her head at once. Her expression did not suggest that what she’d heard had made her want to meet Trish. ‘The legal expert in dysfunctional families who’s seen too much of what happens to children to trust herself with any of her own. Hi, Trish. How are you?’ Bella held out her hand.

Stunned by the cheek as much as the inaccuracy of Bella’s diagnosis, Trish was glad to be able to go on hating her. Ben was looking distinctly embarrassed.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, Bella,’ Trish said sweetly, shaking hands as though she did not mind the touch of Bella’s skin on hers.

‘That’s OK. I have the makings for a pitcher of iced tea. Will you have some?’

‘Well, yes, thanks,’ said Trish, who did not much care for cold sweet tea with half the garden in it, like some poor-man’s Pimms, but wanted to have a chance to talk to Ben alone. It was not that she would have preferred Pimms. She hated that, too, for absurdly obvious reasons: it had been her father’s drink.

‘Daisy, come on,’ said Bella, demonstrating fearless mastery over the animal she had known for a much shorter time than Trish had, as she went back to the kitchen.

‘We don’t drink alcohol any more,’ said Ben, leading the way out of the hall, ‘hence the tea. D’you mind, Trish?’

‘Not in the least. But don’t you miss wine? You used to get through a fair amount.’

‘Bella’s helped me give up a lot of destructive habits.’ He pushed open the drawing-room door.

The room looked shabbier but otherwise exactly the same as it always had done, with piles of newspapers on the floor beside each of the squidgy chairs and heaps of books on every available surface, the dust marks showing which of them had been recently read. Only the hi-fi system was new. Bella had made none of the changes second wives usually insisted on to mark the change of ownership.

‘Has Antonia sent you? You do still see
her
, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Trish, ignoring Ben’s emphasis and trying to stop her mind filling with memories of the hours the three of them had spent in the big room when it had all begun to go wrong. She had to admit that the atmosphere was a good deal sweeter than it had been then. If that had been Bella’s work, then maybe she wasn’t all bad.

‘But no, she hasn’t. In fact, she virtually ordered me
not
to come.’

Then you’ve been amazingly brave. Although, come to think of it, she never did frighten you, did she, Trish?’

‘No. There’ve been lots of times when she’s made me go completely bananas, but she’s never frightened me. Not many people do.’ Except myself.

Ben laughed but quickly sobered again as he asked for news.

‘Of Charlotte? There isn’t any. That’s why I came. I wondered …’

‘Whether I’d got her?’ The pleasure had gone out of his face, and she could feel him withdrawing from her. ‘Oh, Trish.’

‘No. I knew you couldn’t have had anything to do with it,’ she said at once. ‘But I thought you might be able to tell me things I couldn’t possibly ask Antonia.’

‘I doubt it, but I’ll try,’ he said, adding with an effort, ‘But it would have been a reasonable question to ask. Don’t think I don’t know that. You could have suspected me – the police do. And I haven’t got an alibi. But I’m glad you don’t. After everything … Anyway, I can promise you I haven’t got her. I wish I had. I’d know she was safe then.’

I wish you had, too, thought Trish. And I know what Bella would make of that if she knew anything about me. I want all fathers to make a real push to see their children and take care of them. That’s why I was so angry when you told Antonia you’d never have anything to do with her baby. I dumped on to you all the fury I’d like to have poured over
my
father. I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t fair and it hurt you when you were so hurt already by everything Antonia had done, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.

‘You always were a forgiving bloke, Ben.’

‘You’ve never done anything that would need forgiving.’ He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes with a familiar gesture that brought the past back far too vividly. ‘Anything. I’ve missed you, you know, Trish.’

‘I … It seemed so difficult when … you know. I can’t think now why it was quite so tough.’

‘It was an odd time,’ he agreed. ‘None of us behaved very sensibly. Have you been happy since?’

‘That’s a tricky one. I’ve been busy, excited, triumphant, enraged … powerful and then got scared of the power; in love once or twice. You know, more of the same, really. You?’

‘I have been happy.’ His brown eyes, unprotected without the hornrims, looked so much more at peace than they had ever done in the old days that Trish believed him and tried to think more charitably of Bella.

‘Good. Ben, do you know anything about Robert Hithe?’ she asked, grabbing the opportunity before she had to start being polite. A cannonade of barking from the passage suggested that she didn’t have much time left. ‘I tried to ask Antonia about him, but she wouldn’t talk.’

‘I’ve never met the man. I know even less about him than I know about poor little Charlotte. Sorry, Trish.’

‘Shit,’ said Trish.

‘That’s not a word I permit in this house,’ said Bella calmly as she bent down to put a neatly laid tray on the table in front of Ben. Her hips looked enormous as she bent forwards, and the pleats of her flowery skirt spread apart to make room for them.

Trish caught sight of her own legs in the straight indigo jeans and enjoyed the sharpness of her wrist-bones, too.

‘ “Shit” is as nothing to the words in my mind,’ she said casually, and then felt ashamed of herself. There was probably nothing seriously wrong with Bella, or nothing much, and there was no reason to wind her up.

‘And why is that, Trish?’ Bella asked, looking and sounding just like a patronising schoolmistress.

‘Because she hoped I could give her some information about Antonia’s new man,’ said Ben, smiling first at one of them and then the other, ‘but I can’t.’

‘The child’s stepfather?’ There was more hostility than curiosity in the question, and in Bella’s face, but Trish was an old hand at dealing with hostility. She had always found that much easier than patronage.

‘Why should you know anything about him, Ben? And why should she force her way in here to ask you?’

‘I hoped he could tell me something,’ said Trish pacifically. ‘That’s all. Any man in Robert Hithe’s position – particularly without children of his own – who has to act as father to another man’s child comes into the category of people most likely to do that child harm.’

‘Yes – so? What’s that got to do with you? She’s not your child. Aren’t the police dealing with it?’

‘Of course they are. They’ve been talking to him today, and they’ll probably get the truth out of him soon enough, but I thought if I could find out a bit more, myself, then if he is implicated in what’s happened, at least I’d be in a position to help Antonia, perhaps even warn her in some way.’

‘And you’d want to do that, of course.’

‘Bella,’ said Ben, as he leaned forward to give Trish a misted glass of iced tea. There was a warning in his voice. It did not seem to have much effect on his wife.

‘Look, Ben, this is a woman you haven’t seen in years, who you’ve no reason to trust, coming here pretending to ask questions about your ex-wife’s lover. Anyone but you would know she’s got an ulterior motive. She’s trouble. Can’t you smell it? You don’t have to answer anything she asks you. You have rights here.’

Trish felt better as she realised that she was not the only one with childish feelings. But once again she wondered just what Ben had told Bella about her.

‘Don’t, Bel,’ he was saying. ‘I’d answer anything Trish chose to ask me. She couldn’t possibly be trouble for either of us. Trust me.’

‘She sided with Antonia. And it sounds as though she hasn’t changed.’

‘No, she didn’t side with Antonia,’ said Ben, turning his head to smile at Trish. ‘She just got out of the way of the flying plates. Didn’t you?’

‘Something like that,’ Trish admitted.

‘And Antonia’s her cousin, her blood relative, and she’s a loyal soul,’ he went on, his voice bathing Trish in reminiscent approval. ‘As I have reason to know.’

Bella’s eyes could have shrivelled a heavyweight boxer at a hundred paces, but she said nothing.

‘I wish I could help you, Trish,’ said Ben, ‘and poor Charlotte, too, but I can’t see how. I may have met Robert Hithe at some stage in the past, but I don’t remember him. All I know is that he’s a hotshot advertiser, and that’s not a world I know anything about. I hardly ever cross the river these days. I don’t see Antonia. I’ve never even spoken to Charlotte. I had nothing to tell the police – or to show them.’ He laughed unhappily. ‘They looked round the house, you know.’

‘You never told me that,’ said Bella sharply, her attention switching away from Trish.

‘It wasn’t important and I knew it would make you angry.’

‘It’s outrageous. Did they have a warrant? They can’t have. I wish you’d remember that you don’t always have to do what everyone tells you, Ben. No, really, that was dumb.’

So, thought Trish looking at her boots, he’s picked another bossy wife. I wonder why.

Ben laughed at Bella’s vehemence. ‘Sometimes it’s easier to do what people want. And when it doesn’t matter, why try to resist?’

‘Principle?’ suggested Trish quietly, remembering how difficult it had been to hang on to hers in the days when she and Ben had discovered that there was more to their feelings for each other than the cousinly affection she had admitted to Antonia.

It had been almost impossible to refuse the happiness they could have given each other, but they had managed to do it. They had not betrayed Antonia. They had never made love. One evening they had come very close to it, and Trish knew that she would never forget the feeling of absolute emotional security coupled with dizzying, utterly destabilising physical pleasure that she had felt then. But they had resisted it.

‘I don’t have principles any more,’ said Ben. ‘They lead to a lot of unnecessary misery.’ He looked at Trish and she knew that he was remembering, too. She hoped that Bella did not understand what was going on. After a time Ben lowered his eyes.

Later he said: ‘Where will you go next, Trish, now you know we can’t help with Charlotte – or Robert Hithe?’

‘I haven’t a clue, unfortunately. I feel helpless – and hopeless.’

‘Does that matter?’ asked Bella sharply. ‘You have no official role here.’

‘True.’ Trish got to her feet. There was no point trying to explain why she had to do everything she could to help Charlotte – and Antonia. ‘Look, it’s late and I’ve kept you too long.’

Too right, said the expression on Bella’s round face.

‘The iced tea was delicious,’ said Trish. ‘So often it’s sickly.’

‘Not mine. I always use a lot of lemon and fresh ’erbs. I’m glad you liked it,’ Bella said. She produced a smile, perhaps in pleasure at Trish’s impending departure. ‘It was good to meet with you at last. We’ll see you again, I hope.’

‘I hope so, too. Goodbye.’

Ben left Bella alone in the drawing room while he walked Trish to the front door. Then, standing on the step, breathing in the warm evening air, he said, ‘Don’t get Bella wrong. She’s not usually that aggressive. She just feels protective of me where Antonia’s concerned. All this business with Charlotte has stirred up a lot of old emotions.’

‘I know, but … Look, don’t get
me
wrong, either. I’m not doubting anything you’ve said, but have you really no ideas about what could have happened to Charlotte?’

He shook his head. ‘Like you, Trish, I feel hopeless. If I had anything useful to contribute, I’d have been on to Antonia at once. Whatever there’s been between us, I’d never have wished something like this on her. Or Charlotte. If I could’ve helped, I’d have done it straight away. You must know that.’

‘Yes, I do know it. Ben …’ She stopped herself and then asked whether he had any suggestions about who else she might ask for help.

‘None. But listen, Trish. No one who cares about children could do something like this. You should be looking for a child hater, not a child lover.’ He shook his head, obviously impatient with himself. ‘No. “Lover” isn’t the right word. Someone who minds about children and
their
happiness. But that’s obvious enough. I’m sorry – I can’t think of anything even remotely useful.’