Dying on Principle (15 page)

I kept a pack of frozen peas specially to use as a compress, and many a time had reduced an ankle swollen after a jogging mishap to a perfectly usable joint the next morning. I even had some tubular elasticated bandage, so I could support the knee when I moved around. However, it looked so ridiculous with the shortish skirt I was wearing, I changed into a pair of summer-weight trousers. Jeans might be regarded as inappropriate for the trustees' meeting that evening. I dug in the cupboard under the stairs for a walking stick. Damn it all, all I needed was a patch on my eye and a parrot on my shoulder. I was just applying some make-up when the front doorbell rang. The leg was definitely improving – I didn't have to go down the stairs on my bottom.

‘My dear Sophie! Are you all right?'

Richard Fairfax. I hadn't been aware that I was in any way dear to him. But he stared at me with such solicitude I realised I must have forgotten my blusher.

I had also forgotten to clear the assorted rubbish from my dining table. I gathered it up with an impartial sweep – I could see membership renewals, a final demand, the Midshires Symphony Orchestra's programme of summer concerts, a card from my father suggesting I might like a weekend with him when I was next in Spain, and some notes I thought I'd lost for the computer project.

Fairfax regarded the assortment thoughtfully. ‘A young person's table. It's only later one learns to be methodical, to keep one's affairs in order.'

I looked at him sharply. He was paler than I.

‘A little tired,' he said deprecatingly, as if that was the price to be paid by a captain of industry.

If, of course, that was what he was. He was clearly loaded, but had not found it necessary to explain how he passed his working days.

‘Whisky?'

He shook his head. ‘Are you sure you should be standing on that leg?'

From the sofa, my leg propped up, I gestured him to an armchair. But he fidgeted around the room. I wondered by what standards he was judging my pictures and the framed sampler Chris had given me for my most recent birthday. ‘My feet will seek the paths of righteousness. Catherine Mary Roberts. Anno Domini 1837.'

‘How did it happen?' He pointed to my leg and sat on a dining chair, pulling his briefcase alongside him.

I explained.

He was suitably outraged. ‘Which hospital did they take you to?'

I laughed.

‘You mean you've ignored—'

‘If I'd taken it to Casualty, I'd still be there now. And I'd be taking someone else's place in the queue. It's not terminal, you know.'

‘I'll take you in after the meeting. I assure you you won't have to queue.'

I had a sudden and unattractive vision of him marching up to the reception desk and waving his
BUPA
card. I shook my head emphatically.

He was about to speak when the doorbell rang again. He sat and watched while I struggled to my feet, and I pondered the difference between taking a grateful me dramatically to hospital and offering the unobtrusive courtesy of opening the front door for me.

By the time I'd greeted Aberlene, and waited with her while Adrian and Simon got out of Adrian's lush new Mondeo, then explained to all three what I'd been up to and ushered them into the living room, Fairfax was just putting away his mobile phone. When the bell rang for the third time, Aberlene pushed me gently on to a chair and headed off. Simon darted out too. Aberlene returned with Frank and the two trustees who hadn't made it to the previous meeting, but no Simon.

I greeted the three men as graciously as I could from a sitting position: Adrian; Michael Hobbs, an overblown man whose thick moustache and thicker neck combined to make him look like a species of seal; and Philip Berkeley, grey and nondescript. Hobbs was company secretary to one of Birmingham's few remaining manufacturing firms; Berkeley something in insurance. I never quite gathered how they fitted into the musical frame as trustees, but being in industry these days was supposed to make you an expert in everything. Now I came to think of it, more than half the governors of George Muntz and the other newly incorporated colleges were required by statute to come from commerce and industry.

There was a drift to join me at the table.

‘No! Don't sit down yet! Not till we can see where's best for Sophie,' Simon called from the door. He was carrying my dressing-table stool. ‘There! Just the right height, I should think.'

Adrian looked pointedly from Simon to me. I smiled blithely and, supporting my calf with one hand and my thigh with the other, manoeuvred into place. Fairfax moved himself and his briefcase to the seat opposite.

The meeting began.

I'm afraid that money has never really interested me for its own sake, and I suppose that Chris and Aberlene were right to suggest I wasn't very good at spending it. And my leg was beginning to think longingly of more frozen peas and more aspirin, so I paid no more than polite attention to Fairfax's proposals. He'd been talking about the advantages of brokerled investments, or something similar, when Frank, who'd been covering his agenda with extravagant and possibly Freudian doodles, looked up.

‘How about investing some of the society's assets in that Newtown project I've heard rumours of?' he asked.

Fairfax looked at him coldly. ‘I never advise organisations such as this to invest in anything with which I am connected. Now, if the orchestra insist on their ethical investments – and may I remind you how quixotic this is – I would draw your attention to the following items in the proposals before you. Page seven, I believe, ladies and gentlemen …'

Aberlene insisted on making the coffee, dismissing me to the sofa, but Simon wandered into the kitchen after her. There was a quick burst of music; I presumed he was checking his handiwork. Adrian talked to Fairfax about something but kept looking at me. Frank hovered, waiting for a chance to speak to Fairfax, but it seemed to me he was deliberately snubbed. Eventually they exchanged perhaps three sentences, their backs hunched away from the rest of us, and Frank left without waiting for the coffee. Berkeley and Hobbs inspected me and my home with some condescension, and left a couple of minutes later.

Adrian lounged over to my sofa and applied a charming smile, which I found difficult to reciprocate. I could find no immediate reason for not liking him; could I be plain, old-fashioned jealous? Time would tell, perhaps.

Fortunately Aberlene and Simon returned with the coffee, and we managed to turn my lack of CD equipment into a conversational asset. Fairfax unobtrusively chomped a couple of large tablets and became more animated than he'd been all evening, describing the delights of his system with almost voluptuous gestures. Simon joined in. Adrian, presumably as ignorant as I, lapsed into silence, and Aberlene glanced from her watch to the window. Was Tobias too circumspect to come to my front door to collect her? I asked the odd question, and wondered if I might take some more aspirin on a very empty stomach. If only everyone would just go home.

At last they did. Everyone except Fairfax. This time the wretched man did act the host, ushering the others out. And then he offered to help me to my feet.

‘You have to eat,' he said ‘Le Provençale, I thought.'

I was too taken aback to argue.

‘I booked a table earlier. We shall be a little late, thanks to all that talking shop, but they'll hold it till we arrive. You have a coat?'

‘Hanging in the hall,' I said meekly.

He parked just outside the restaurant, on a double yellow line. I expected him to settle me and then go and find somewhere more legal, but he seemed unconcerned. Somehow I didn't want to hear what he'd say if I reminded him, so I kept quiet and told myself that anyone who drove a car like his could pay the fine as easily as I paid my bus fare. And I didn't like the thought.

On certain days of the week, Le Provençale had a cheaper, set-meal option, as well as the usual
à la carte
. Among the
table d'hôte
items was a salad with hot smoked cheeses which really engaged my foodie's imagination. And the chicken with cream and tarragon sauce appealed too.

But it seemed Fairfax wanted to order for me: ‘Smoked salmon, surely? And then duck?'

At last he acquiesced, but with startling ill grace. He wasn't crass enough to say anything, so I was left to work out how I'd offended him. Eating my own choice of food – would that be enough to upset him on principle? Had I somehow implied he couldn't afford the most expensive? I let him have his minor revenge with the wine; I'd have preferred their particularly flirty Gewürztraminer, but it seemed we were to have champagne. Vintage, too. Who was I to argue? I'd better have the lion's share, too, since he was driving.

The conversation was horribly dull. I refused to mention life at college, because I didn't want another anti-teacher diatribe. The only response would have been to walk out, and I was in no position to do that. So we talked about the food before us, and the decor, and the future of Harborne, and one or two sites he saw as ripe for development and which I hoped would remain valued landmarks. Then he turned, with somewhat more animation, to my accident. He wanted chapter and verse.

‘Truly, Richard, I can't remember much. I know it was essentially my fault. I should have used the pelican crossing. But I'll swear the man grinned when he accelerated.'

‘What did he look like?'

‘I don't know – all I remember is the wretched man's grin. Like the Cheshire Cat!'

‘But the car, surely you remember the car?'

I shook my head.

‘Surely!' he insisted. ‘What about the number?'

I shook my head again. He would have pressed further, had not Geoff, the proprietor, who knew me of old, strolled over to offer me condolences and a sweet. His suggestion, an extravagantly calorific ice cream, was inspired. Not just for the flavour and texture, but for the extraordinary effect it had on Fairfax; his face lit up and he started to talk about his youth and a particular make of ice cream he used to eat on holiday in Devon. I'd never before seen him unbuttoned, as it were. He talked solidly for ten minutes about his boyhood.

‘No, of course you haven't been boring me,' I said, truthfully, when he interrupted himself to apologise. At last I'd seen the vulnerable side of this public man. Presumably it was the poverty of his early days in the Hospital Street area of the city that had driven him on to make money later. OK, as psychology it was pretty pat, but it gave me something to go on.

While he'd been talking, his sweet had congealed on the plate, and he pushed it away. More tablets.

‘A touch of indigestion,' he apologised, patting his ribs. ‘I'm too old to eat big meals late at night.'

My recollection was that he'd done little more than pick at anything except the smoked salmon, and his original glass of champagne had bubbled itself flat. But I merely smiled acquiescence. Neither of us wanted coffee or brandy. Geoff helped ease me into the car, which still reposed on its yellow lines, unsullied by a parking penalty. To those who have, shall be given.

The trouble is, I never can sleep after champagne. And that night, the questions kept bubbling up in my mind. What was I doing eating out with Richard Fairfax? What was I thinking of when I agreed to accompany him to the next concert at the Music Centre? And – this was the question that niggled most deeply – why should
he
want to spend time with someone so obviously out of tune with his own opinions?

At about three in the morning I got up and burrowed in the bathroom cabinet. In the depths lurked a little bottle of extra strong painkillers they'd given me after my accident. By now enough of the champagne must have left my system for me to risk them. I took two, and slept at once.

If I'd been back at William Murdock, I wouldn't have hesitated for more than a minute about going in to work. I'd have taken a taxi and somehow persuaded the lifts to work. There'd have been plenty of friendly, willing hands ready to carry things I couldn't manage while I was leaning on a walking stick. But I was at George Muntz College, just a hundred and fifty yards from my house. And the excuses for not travelling even that far sprang out like green leaves.

Eventually, however, my sterner self pointed out that my leg was so indisputably less swollen and less painful that I could hardly justify a day off. Not with things as they were. I ought to be in the thick of it, supporting my colleagues. I ought to be working on the project – any excuse that I could do exactly the same thinking and development work at home was a sad reflection on my lack of commitment – and I ought to be poking my nose still further into the Melina affair. And I ought to ask Phil what he'd found on Dr Trevelyan's computer.

So I was just about to cross Balden Road when a car pulled up ten yards ahead of me and then reversed sharply and dramatically towards me. The driver was out of the car, arms akimbo, glaring at me before I could look right and left again.

Dr Burrows: my GP ever since I'd been in Harborne.

‘Get back into the house. Go on! Back on your settee and leave the door open. I'll get my bag of tricks and follow you.' She flung open her boot. Presumably she didn't worry about parking parallel to the kerb.

I did as I was told. I'd removed my jeans and the tubi-grip by the time she swept in, flourishing her case.

I couldn't see anything obvious, even though it was my knee and I knew most of its bumps and lumps with reasonable intimacy, but Dr Burrows shoved two cold fingers on a place that made me scream.

‘Pop along after work. See the physio. We've got one of those now. And a part-time shrink. And a guy that does hypnotherapy and a spot of acupuncture on the side. All mod cons. Anyway –' she gave my patella a final prod – ‘she'll sort you out. Give you some exercises. Support and light exercise, that's the thing. But keep the whole leg supported for a couple of days, or it'll ache like hell.' She seized her bag and exited to the hall. Then she popped her head back round the door. ‘Had an anti-tet recently? There's a campaign – more money for me if I give you one.'