Last Act of All
Authors: Aline Templeton
Copyright © Aline Templeton 2014
The right of Aline Templeton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited
This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
To JWR and MMR with love and gratitude
Each
time tonight, when her eyelids dropped over burning eyes, she could see the scene again, lit by memory as mercilessly as any performed under television arc-lights. His shoulders, straining the Tattersall checked shirt as he slumped across the figured walnut desk; his hands splayed in stark surprise, and his profile sharp in relief against disordered papers, the visible eye open but glassily unseeing; the back of his head—
Always,
at this point, her eyes shot wide open, staring into soundless dark. Heart pumping erratically, she gulped the stale air inside the cell, her only orientation threadlines of light leaking round the edges of the peephole shutter.
The
last night. Tomorrow she need not lie in darkness, confined with the hobgoblins of night. Tonight, her mind was stirring, like the Kraken, dislodging from fathomless trenches the ugliness she had buried there.
There
was fear; there was rage; there was confusion; there was deathly sorrow. But she, with somewhere still a small core of fierce pride in her skill at acting these emotions, unfelt, had contrived to invert that talent. It had enabled her to banish thought, even when the key was turned in the lock, and she lay down upon the narrow bed. There was only the texture of blankets under her fingers, then oblivion, descending as heavily as a big brass poker with a shiny knob on the end.
But
tonight she was feeling something, like the tingle of pins and needles, the forerunner of pain in a frost-bitten limb. Excitement — no; that suggested pleasure or happiness, emotions she had relinquished with the rest, though round the words still hung a faint, recollected fragrance. Fear, perhaps?
She
had been very afraid at first, rigid, almost cataleptic in her terror, but gradually a survival strategy was born.
Every
minute of every hour of every day was a discrete entity, unconnected to those gone before, or coming after. ‘I will measure out my life in coffee spoons.’ Her mouth might frame the words, but her mind had to learn not to trace their source.
Minute
by minute, she loosened her spirit from the fetters of memory, and the tide of pain and retrospection ebbed, leaving her mind blank as sea-scoured sand.
Even
the other women, whom she had feared, became blessedly remote, and they, after initial reaction to her notoriety as the woman who murdered Neville Fielding — ‘Badman’ Harry Bradman to his numberless fans — lost interest in the quiet, unresponsive robot she had created. This useful artefact she programmed as the perfect prisoner, learning Spanish or doing the most unpleasant kitchen chore with the same obedient indifference.
Tomorrow
was an abyss of uncertainty. Tomorrow Edward, her husband, would be waiting for her. She had not thought about him, did not wish to think about him now. Yet thoughts wormed in and writhed about her mind.
Could
she bear, tomorrow night, to lie with another body close, breathing, turning, intruding on her space? Could she bear his touch, or would caressing hands burn like a garment of flame?
His
letters, which she opened dutifully and passed her eyes across, spoke of love, but it meant nothing now. It was a word, like happiness, from another country. The wench he loved was dead; had she loved him, even then?
She
had loved Neville, when they were married, or perhaps she had hated him. There didn’t, now, seem to be much difference. Helena had felt both passions, but Helena was insubstantial, like a character in an ill-remembered novel. It would be strange, being Helena again.
Or
Mother.
That
ultimate, forbidden thought brought her upright, in a spasm of agony. She must not lie here, while the smooth, taut, blank sheet of her mind grew rumpled and soiled.
She
got up, not caring that the floor struck icy, February chill to her shrinking bare feet. Up, down, across; six steps, four steps, six steps, three to the bed. She stopped only once, when the shutter on the peephole was momentarily lifted. But no one came in, and like the polar bear going slowly mad on its apron of concrete, she resumed her pacing, four, six, three, six again.
But
she was used to confinement. Perhaps her whole life had been a restricting process, forcing her into smaller and smaller spaces, till she was nothing but a tiny wooden doll, coffined at the heart of it.
*
In the mirk of the February morning, the meagre-faced clock on the gatehouse of the women’s prison showed eight o’clock, and as it began a tinny chime the postern in the huge black gate began to open.
The
figure that appeared, a carry-all in her hand, was small and slight. Her hair was silver-blonde slipping imperceptibly into grey, unskilfully cut into a longish bob.
As
she surveyed the world outside, her gaze was almost blind; a blank, incurious stare from shadowed eyes huge in the pinched peskiness of her face.
She
stepped over the deep sill and turned blunderingly to her left. She was wearing a suede jacket and an expensive tweed skirt: good clothes, but the skirt hung in folds as if bought for a larger person, and the drooping jacket was creased by folding.
A
Rover, not new, but well-polished and maintained, was parked on the other side of the street. A man was climbing out of it and hurrying towards her, a tall man, but otherwise nondescript; thin-faced, with light brown hair receding at the temples.
He
didn’t look exactly exciting, and she didn’t look exactly excited, stopping short of the step that would have taken her into his arms.
He
said, ‘Hello, darling, how are you?’ then bent forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek.
Sensing
her withdrawal, Edward acknowledged withdrawal in himself. She was his wife, his own Helena, of course, but she looked so — so strange, thin and ungainly, with a disturbing emptiness in her eyes, and even — though perhaps he imagined it — with a faint whiff of the prison smell about her. He had experienced this flicker of revulsion before, when he had visited her, but believed he had ignored it.
He
relieved her of her bag, then grasped her elbow to escort her across the road. He might almost have been collecting her from the London train.
‘
Edward. Thank you for meeting me.’ Helena turned up the corners of her mouth in a smile, as if someone had instructed her that this was how it was done. He could feel her shaking, her arm fragile as a chicken’s bone under his fingers.
The
car was warm; he settled her in the passenger seat as solicitously as if she were an invalid, then got in himself.
A
small, cold fear was edging itself into his mind. What if the experience had left her permanently unbalanced? How would he, with what he himself would have described as a thoroughly normal English distaste for any kind of untidy emotion, cope with a wife who was not — normal?
There
was nothing new about human life presenting problems, and over the centuries useful strategies had been devised for coping with them. You couldn’t change the past, so agonizing messily and uncontrollably over the whole thing wouldn’t help. Like spent nuclear fuel, it had to be effectively sealed off, dumped and forgotten, if you didn’t want to find that the contamination had spread.
Social
structures were there to take precisely that sort of strain, to help you keep your life within your control. It might not be feasible to put things back exactly as they had been, but by following the rules, you could avoid violent and unproductive change.
Which
made sense. If he smashed one of his Chelsea teacups, he wanted it repaired as perfectly as possible, even if there would always be some hairline cracks. It wouldn’t help to start from the pieces and try to make a wholly inadequate milk-jug instead.
But
the image made him wince. It was her beauty he ached for, the perfection that had drawn him to her in the first place. Beauty was rare in Radnesfield, which was perhaps why it meant so much to him; he had thought himself the luckiest man in the world when she had agreed to marry him. The way she looked now provoked not admiration, but pity.
And
guilt. His responsibility was to protect her; he had failed, and all he could do to compensate was to try to restore now, as nearly as possible, what she had lost.
That
he could acknowledge; strictly censored had been any recognition of anger, his own anger that she had, by her actions, implicitly rejected that protection at the outset.
That
was behind them now, anyway. What lay ahead — what must lie ahead — was the smoothest possible return to everyday life.
So
Edward began to talk, easily and superficially, as if Helena had returned after some quite ordinary absence — a holiday, perhaps, or a visit to friends. He talked about the house, about the garden, about the effect of the housing market on his estate agent’s business, and like the actress she still was she played to the cues he fed her.
At
last, firmly as a horseman with a nervous mare, he brought her round to the first of the hurdles.
‘
Stephanie should be at home by the time we get there. Darnley Hall agreed to let her come home for the weekend.’
At
her daughter’s name, he felt her stiffen, and knew, as if he could read her mind, that she was reliving their last meeting, suffering once more the agony of the child’s frantic rejection. He carried on, swiftly and smoothly.
‘
I think there was a hockey match or something, but I got the impression that Stephie wasn’t too heartbroken to miss it.’ Her voice was not entirely steady, but at least she replied. ‘She was never too keen on hockey. Horses, now...”
He
laughed. ‘Oh, horses!’ he said, with a gesture of resignation. A little silence fell.
His
next task was more difficult, but it was not one that he could shirk. He had gambled everything on this one bold act, and she had to accept it, she had to agree...
He
spoke unemphatically, though out of the corner of his eye he was watching for reaction.
‘
I decided it would be a good idea to have a party for you, darling — just to celebrate having you home again. The day after tomorrow — I’ve asked everybody I can think of, and we’ve arranged the catering from Limber. So there’s nothing you need do except enjoy yourself, and catch up with all your old friends.’
He
sensed that, like the nervous horse, she was going to refuse. Her hands, previously unnaturally still in her lap, began a panicky fluttering of protest, and glancing at her he could see that she had turned pale.
He
reached across to imprison one of her hands with a grip that was so urgent as to be painful.
‘
No, Helena, you mustn’t. You’ve been doing so well. Can’t you see, my darling? This is what we
must
do. Get it all over at once, behave normally, and you’ll see — no one will ever mention it again. It’s over. Finished. Sealed book.’
Sealed
book. Those were clearly the words that caught her attention; the philosophy that chimed with her own. Close it. Shut it off. Bury it, so that not even in dreams need she glance at its pages.
‘
Finished,’ she murmured, her eyes closed.
‘
Finished,’ he said, and it was a promise.
There
was a long, long silence. He looked at her anxiously once or twice, but said nothing, and eventually she opened her eyes. When she spoke, she sounded almost casual.
‘
How many people are coming?’ she asked, any wife to any husband.
His
relief was such that it was difficult to match her dispassionate tone.
‘
It’s hard to say, really — I haven’t given them much time to reply. I’ve asked all the usual village people, and our neighbours nearby — the Morleys, Annabel and James, if his political duties allow, Nick and the Whites and one or two others from the office — you know...’
‘
And — Lilian?’ she said stiffly.
‘
My dear girl, you should know by now that if you don’t ask Lilian and she wants to be there, she’ll come anyway.’
He
thought that she almost smiled. Certainly, inviting Neville’s widow to this sort of coming-out party could have been tactless to an offensive degree. But Lilian being Lilian, she had contented herself with a brief cameo performance of the widow’s role, before reverting to one more suited to her disposition.
‘
Surely she wouldn’t want to come?’
There
was a trace of panic in her voice, and he soothed her swiftly.
‘
Oh, she’ll certainly behave with perfect sang-froid if she does. She’s got nerve enough for anything. And talking of nerve, Chris Dyer’s coming.’
His
voice darkened at the mention of the television producer, and for the first time Helena turned her head to look at him, though she said nothing.
