Gagged & Bound (18 page)

By the time Trish got back to chambers, still panting, Nessa had gone, leaving her a note to say that Bee Bowman had phoned again. Trish stood with the bag of boots dangling from her hand, re-reading the message and grateful for Bee’s continuing tactful refusal to use her mobile. She dumped the boots under her chair and hurried down the long passage to the room where Robert Anstey had his lair.

He often left early on Fridays to drive to some big country house or other for the weekend, but this evening he was still at work, bowed over a pile of papers. The sound of her step made him look up. Trish watched a momentary spasm of irritation turn into a supposedly placid smile.

‘Well, Trish? What can I do for you this fine evening? Antony gone and abandoned you again? How he makes you suffer!’

‘I came because I wanted to ask for your help, Robert.’

At the sound of her submissive tones, he looked like a cat about to purr.

‘As you know, coming from “a ghastly red-brick university”,’ she said, using his favourite insult, ‘I have no experience of the glamorous life you and your relations lived at Oxford. D’you think you could help me find out about someone who was there – at your college, in fact – but about fifteen years before you?’

‘My dear, Trish, I’m sure I can help. What is his name?’

‘Jeremy Marton, who was at Christ Church in the early seventies. Were any of your manifold relations there then?’

Robert allowed his face to harden into a thoughtful frown. Trish had to admit that he was in fact rather good-looking, certainly more so than Antony, or even George. He had a kind of old-fashioned, very English, handsomeness. You could imagine him leading a charge in some desperate battle miles from any known civilisation, or taking the rope up the nastiest pitch on some unspeakable rock face.

‘My godfather’s stepbrother is about the right age. He might have known your bloke. I can certainly find out. Is it terribly urgent, or would Monday do you?’

‘The sooner the better.’ It was typical of the world Robert inhabited that he would be in touch with – and aware of everything about – such a tenuous connection.

‘I’ll have to tell him what it’s about,’ he said, unable to disguise his curiosity.

‘Antony asked me to help a friend of his who needs to find out more about this man. He died a year or two ago.’

Trish could see Robert pining to ask why Antony had chosen to confide in a woman of whose social resources he himself had such a low opinion.

‘So you’re still doing unpaid little errands for the great man, are you?’ he said to make himself feel better.

‘Luckily I can afford it now that my practice is booming.’

‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ Robert intoned, like an old-fashioned parson, ‘and …’

‘Actually, old boy, I think you’ll find it’s “Pride goeth before destruction; and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Have a good weekend.’

At the door, she glanced back and gave him a cheery wave. He was looking seriously put out.

 

 

To celebrate David’s success in Saturday’s rugby match, Trish took him and Julian out for lunch at the French pancake restaurant, then drove both boys to Julian’s house in Holland Park, before going on to Fulham, to spend the rest of the weekend with George.

It felt surprisingly good to let herself into his cosy house and know she could forget responsibility for everything and everyone for the next twenty-four hours. She even liked the powdery, dressing-up-box smell of the pot pourri his mother made him every summer from her own rose petals.

He’d bought all the papers, rather than simply his usual
Times,
and they sat in his celadon-green drawing room taking their time with the news, reading out particularly funny or intriguing paragraphs in the way that had once surprised her but now seemed natural.

In the evening he cooked a simple dish of guinea-fowl and lemon, with no cream or wodges of butter to weigh it down. They ate it by candlelight in the kitchen, with a sharply bitter salad. There was no pudding, except a bowl of imported raspberries.

They had even more to talk about than usual. None of it was of much consequence: just more snippets of news that had caught their imagination, idle discussions of where they might take their summer holiday, and what they’d both been reading. Trish told him about the biography of Aldous Huxley she’d bought after Bee Bowman had talked enthusiastically about him one day. She’d begun it on Monday and had been entranced by the first volume, with its evocation of a highly cultivated life in the south of France between the wars.

‘I don’t know whether it’s that,’ George said, smiling at her over the candles, ‘but something is making you look a lot better than you did last week.’

‘It’s probably these,’ Trish reached out to touch one of the flames, letting her finger stay in it just long enough to feel the
heat, ‘their light flatters. And I must say it’s good to be just us for a change.’

He nodded. ‘David’s a great kid. I like him more and more, but I’m glad we can still have this too. D’you want some music?’

‘Why not? Something gentle with strings.’

She didn’t recognise the violin concerto that flowed out into the room a moment later, but it suited her mood. He moved away from the CD player and stood behind her chair, lightly stroking her head and the back of her neck. She let her head droop forwards and felt his thumbs strengthen as he began to rub the tension out of her neck.

‘Mmm. Lovely,’ she said after a while, raising her head and letting it rest against him.

They hadn’t made love for so long that she didn’t want to put him off by seeming too keen – or not interested enough. It was too soon to sigh or groan with pleasure, and hard to express her enthusiasm any other way while she was sitting on the hard chair with him behind her. She raised her arm to stroke his and felt him bend to kiss her hair.

‘George?’

‘Mm?’

‘I feel like a contortionist. Shall we go upstairs?’

‘Why not? You go on up. I’ll lock the doors.’

His bed was like an enormous white cloud. She shivered a little as she slid between the linen sheets, then slowly warmed up as they talked, only to shiver again when George trailed his fingers along the sides of her body.

Later, in the few seconds before all ideas merged into physical sensation, she thought of old unhappy relationships, when sex had been a poor substitute for communication. When George slid slowly into her and began to move, matching her rhythm with his, she knew this was only the next part of their long, long conversation.

 

 

Trish collected David on Sunday evening, driving in a loop from Fulham to Holland Park and on to Southwark. She could tell he’d had a good time, and she was still basking in glorious physical ease. She’d almost forgotten the way her skin could feel as though it had been buffed all over and her joints seem to be attached to each other with silk rather than tough old leather.

The traffic wasn’t too bad, and they were home only forty minutes after she’d left George, feeling a little as though half-term had just ended. In the flat the message light was winking on the answering machine. She sent David to unpack his weekend bag and sort out his dirty clothes for washing, while she listened to the messages.

‘Hi,’ said a vaguely familiar voice. ‘This is Lulu Crayley. My mother-in-law said you’d been in touch to talk about her brilliantly successful adoption. If you’d like another view of how she brought John up, just call me. My mobile number is …’

Trish reached for a pencil, then had to play the message again to write down the number. She looked over her shoulder and saw through the open door of David’s bedroom that he was still scuffling in his bag. She hoped he hadn’t lost another pair of boots. He looked up, saw her watching him and gave her his most brilliant smile. She blew him a kiss and loved the way he made a gagging face, as though he were saying his favourite, ‘Gross, Trish!’

He was all right for a while, so she decided to phone Lulu Crayley before listening to the rest of the tape.

‘Hi!’ Lulu said when they were connected. ‘You got my message, then.’

‘Yes, is this a bad time or can you talk?’

‘John’s out for at least the next two hours, if that’s what you mean.’

‘More or less,’ Trish said. ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

There was a bitter-sounding laugh down the phone. ‘I thought it could be important for you to know that not everything the sainted Gillian Crayley did was perfect. Just in case you really are going to write a book encouraging young mothers to give their babies over for adoption. John thinks you are.’ She let her voice trail upwards at the end of the sentence, as though asking for confirmation.

‘Quite right,’ Trish said. ‘What did she do to him?’

‘Apart from pouring so much adoration over him that he thinks he’s perfect, she’s also made him terrified of intimacy.’

At the so-familiar complaint, Trish scooped her chair forwards by hooking one foot under it and dragging it across the floor. She sat down. This could take some time.

‘In what way?’

‘Every possible way. He’s intensely secretive. He won’t ever answer questions. And he can’t share anything.’

Which would fit perfectly with Stephanie’s allegations, Trish thought, and my sense that he had a firewall to protect his real thoughts and feelings from marauders like me. Could it have come from no more than the way he was brought up?

‘I used to feel so guilty about Stephanie,’ Lulu went on, ‘but now I don’t think it was all my fault. It’s as though John has to have a secret life, to kind of protect him against too much emotion. D’you see what I mean?’

‘Did Stephanie ever talk to you about him when they were still together?’ Trish asked, determined not to waste the opportunity.

‘She didn’t,’ Lulu said. ‘But he did. That’s how it happened, really. They were having more and more rows till one night it got so bad that he came round to my flat for comfort. I gave him a drink and listened to how awful it was living with someone who was permanently angry. You could say he never left me again. Not really. Physically he went back to her for a bit, but emotionally he stayed with me.’

‘Did you and she ever talk about it? Later on, I mean.’

There was a long pause, then Lulu snuffled and said, ‘John didn’t want to tell her it was me he was coming to, but I thought it was only fair she should know from us before she heard gossip about it. So I went round to tell her. I thought she’d be angry, or throw me out or something, but she didn’t. She wasn’t cross at all; she just went very quiet and very cold, and said she wished me joy of him.’

‘Sounds as though she could’ve been as relieved to get rid of him as he was to dump her,’ Trish said, storing up impressions, guesses and questions alike. So far everything she’d heard could be interpreted in either John’s favour or Stephanie’s.

‘Yes, but it was more than that. It was as if she was warning me. Only I didn’t realise that at the time. Not really till after we’d got married and he got so … so …’

‘Bluebeard like?’

‘I’ve never found the blood of any previous wives in a tub,’ Lulu said more cheerfully, ‘if that’s what you mean. He’s never violent, and there are no locked doors in the house. But a lot of the time, even when he’s here, it’s as if he’s dead. Sometimes I want to poke him to make sure he’s still breathing.’

‘Maybe you should,’ Trish said, hearing the resentment that underlay the amusement in Lulu’s voice. ‘A lot of men keep their wives and girlfriends right away from their mates. Does John do that, too?’

She could almost hear the see-if-I-care shrug that must have accompanied Lulu’s sharpened voice, ‘Why would I want to socialise with men in the job? I loathed them when I was in uniform and I’d loathe them now. He knows better than to ask me to join in.’

What better cover could there be for a man with a double life? Trish thought. No wonder this woman seemed preferable to Stephanie as a partner.

‘It’s bad enough having to eat lunch with his parents every
other Sunday and listen to how wonderful he is and watch them thinking I’m spoiling his life.’

‘Both
his parents? Or just Gillian?’

‘Both,’ Lulu said, then added, ‘No, you’re right. Sid hardly ever says anything. But John’s as passionate about him – more really. Once, when we’d come back after a particularly dire day there, John got out his original birth certificate.’

‘How does he manage to have that?’

‘He got a copy when he was eighteen, you know, the age at which adopted children have the right to know the name of their real mothers. His hands were shaking, and he kind of jabbed his forefinger at the space for the father’s name, where it says “father unknown” and shouted at me that Sid had saved him from growing up disowned.’

‘You don’t happen to remember,’ Trish said, seizing the opportunity while she had it, ‘what his real mother’s name was, do you?’

‘Something double-barrelled. Baker-something, I think. The first name was Sally. I don’t know where he keeps the birth certificate, but I could probably find it, if you need to know.’

She sounded so intrigued that Trish hurriedly covered the question with a laugh.

‘Heavens no! That
could
lead to some awful kind of Bluebeard stuff. I was just curious. Don’t even think about it. Thank you for talking to me. I hope things get better for you.’

‘They need to,’ Lulu said, before cutting Trish off.

She heard David’s voice calling her from downstairs.

Not until he was in bed did she have a chance to listen to the rest of her messages. Her mother had rung, offering the week’s news and sounding more cheerful and more like herself than she had since her second husband had died at the end of last year. Trish, who had never felt he’d treated Meg properly and had longed to rescue her, felt another weight of responsibility lighten at the sound of her contentment. The message went on
to say that Meg was really looking forward to having David to stay for the first week of the school holidays and wanted to check some of her plans for his entertainment with Trish before going firm on them.