Meeting the English (18 page)

*   *   *

Struan's heart was hurting him: a very bad pain. It didn't matter how many times he reminded himself that what a grown-up lady did with Jake Prys was none of his business, he still had an ache in the chest cavity. A hollowness, as if something had been uprooted, a plant with many pink roots. Maybe it was angina. Maybe it was a hangover, from the Pimm's. Maybe he should go back to his gran. Certainly, he needed to get out the house.

Carefully, so as not to wake Juliet, Struan sneaked down to the kitchen and bolted his breakfast – two coffees, half a cold omelette, a Pot Noodle – while the nurse got Phillip up and in the chair. Shirin, said the nurse, was up and gone: Struan didn't reply. No hanging pleasantly round the garden this morning: he had Phillip draped and poised on the ramp at the front door at 9:15.

Autumn was coming, he thought. The heat didn't hurt, this morning, and the sun was just a brighter patch on the smeary sky; like the first polished spot on a Brasso'd door bell. He was just bracing himself to release the brakes and take the whole downward momentum of the chair himself, from the top, when Phillip's friend, your man Giles, appeared at the bottom of the steps, grey and sheepish in a crumpled blue suit.

‘Hello there,' he said, waving his briefcase.

‘Hello,' said Struan, waving back and wishing, as he always did with Giles, that he knew if Giles was his Christian name or surname.

‘Going out?' said Giles.

‘To the Heath,' said Struan. ‘Could you mebbe just give me a hand?'

‘Goodness,' said Giles. ‘Well yes, all right, I'll give it a go.'

‘Grand,' said Struan. ‘Can you get up this end? Where I'm standing?' and Giles shuffled up, clutching his briefcase, and Struan put it in Phillip's lap and showed him the brake. ‘Basically,' said Struan, ‘if you can just release that lever very slowly, and take just a wee bit of the weight as it goes down, then I can take most of it from the other end, and it all goes smoothly.'

‘Right,' said Giles, and immediately released the flaccid burden of Phillip Prys, his earliest and most illustrious client, full into the shins of Struan Robertson, just where it hurt the most.

‘Jings,' said Struan, ‘is there no an Englishman in England can operate a brake?'

‘I'm most frightfully sorry,' said Giles, waddling down the steps.

‘Don't mention it,' said Struan, handing him his case, which had slid from Phillip's lap during the plummet. Giles repositioned himself outside the front door. ‘Had you come to see Mrs Prys?' asked Struan.

‘Myfanwy?' asked Giles.

‘She's no here. She'll be in her own home I'm assuming.'

‘Of course,' said Giles, ‘of course. Is, um, Shirin, Mrs Prys, um, up, around?'

‘I couldn't comment,' said Struan.

‘Of course not,' said Giles.

‘She's out,' said Struan. ‘Had you come to see her?'

‘I don't know,' said Giles. ‘Not really. No, I suppose I came to see Phillip.'

The reason he looked so young, so like an anxious small boy, Struan thought, even though he had all that grey hair, was his feet; so big and floppy and turned inward in their bulbous brown shoes. And his eyebrows: soft and furry and pushed together upwards.

‘OK then,' said Struan, ‘would you like to take a walk with us? I'm sure Mr Prys would appreciate your company.'

*   *   *

The sound was so comically, theatrically bad that at first Juliet assumed it was another hallucination: Myfanwy's voice, calling, ‘Juliet! Juliet!'

But the wobble of the stairs and the creak of the boards were real enough, and Juliet rolled from the bed and out the door just in time to confront her on the landing. Myfanwy took up most of it, and Juliet felt very pleased that she was still wearing her pink dress and probably looked thin from the side. Myfanwy was waving a large white envelope, like a flag.

‘You failed,' said Myfanwy. ‘Everything but RE.'

‘Oh, Mother,' said Juliet, backing her swiftly down the stairs (Ron, prostrate and miniature, was barely a foot away through the wall), ‘don't you think we should talk about it like adults?'

‘No, Juliet,' said Myfanwy. ‘We should talk about it like a mother and child.'

‘But we could pretend,' said Juliet. ‘It might be good for us, don't you think? Like a drama workshop? We might behave better?' Downstairs, the phone went. ‘I'd better get that,' said Juliet, dashing down, ‘it's probably Celia.'

She picked it up in the front room. Myfanwy followed, the envelope clasped to her bosom, and settled the billows of herself in the armchair as if they were a train. Regal mode, noted Juliet: Gertrude, Hermione. Not about to weep. Not in any kind of hurry. Bad.

Juliet pulled her tummy in, and ran her fingers through her hair. Some came out. She threw it in the bin. It was Celia's mother on the phone actually, rabbiting on about Celia, who wasn't there apparently, who, if she wasn't at Juliet's all night, seemed to have got up very early and gone out already, no doubt to avoid the envelope, and in that case she was probably coming round to Juliet's and Juliet was to tell her—

‘Did she fail them, then?' said Juliet, hopefully, twining the cord round her arm and peering into the street, in case Celia should be there, weeping.

‘All As but RE,' said Celia's mother, ‘she only got a B in RE, but really you know RE is not an important subject and won't affect her Oxbridge in any way, and of course what we are worried about, me and Celia's dad, is that a tiny, tiny setback like that might set her off her on her dieting silliness again, because you know Juliet she'd been doing so well, she looks marvellous, don't you think, these last few weeks.'

‘Oh yes,' said Juliet, ‘she really does. And those are fabulous results. They're really great. I'll make sure to congratulate her.'

‘Let me know,' said Celia's mother, ‘let me know the minute she comes round, please, Juliet, won't you? You've been so good. I know she is with you every day.'

‘That's right,' said Juliet, ‘every day.' And she put the phone down, and turned to her mother, who arched a painted eyebrow.

‘Have you noticed?' said Juliet. ‘The MG's not outside. In its parking place. It's not there at all.'

Myfanwy smiled sadly: ‘Yes,' she said, ‘it's one of the things I've come to talk to you about. You and Struan, that is.'

‘Me and Struan?' said Juliet, bewildered. ‘Struan passed his exams – he got As.'

‘So I hear,' said Myfanwy.

*   *   *

‘Stuart,' said Giles as they strode along the path.

‘Struan,' said Struan.

‘Struan,' said Giles, ‘you've a fair amount of experience of these cases, haven't you? Strokes, and so forth?'

‘Well,' said Struan, ‘I used to work in a Home.'

‘Right,' said Giles, ‘and I thought your analogy about the tortoise was – well, most informative, another perspective. But the plain fact is some things have come up and I wondered, what I wanted to know was…'

‘Yes?' said Struan, stopping the chair. Giles looked down at Phillip, who seemed to be asleep, and looked up at Struan, chewing his lower lip with his brown upper teeth.

‘Has he, well, blinked or anything? Recently?'

‘Is there a special reason to ask?' said Struan.

‘The fact is,' Giles burst out, scarlet, ‘the fact is, yesterday, I had six different calls about the trust, Juliet's trust, money being used for this and that and cash. Quite a generous amount of rage and self-righteousness slopping about to be honest. It's not as if Phil cared about educating his daughter – only started that trust to avoid tax. And it's not a lot of cash, in the grand sum of things. And then, this morning, dawn, in fact, a fax. Asking me to hand over the rights to some of Phillip's stuff. Much bigger deal. His copyrights, don't you know.' Giles started to wriggle out of his crumpled jacket.

‘Here,' said Struan, indicating the jacket, ‘I could hang that on the back of the chair for you.' Giles looked more than ever like Billy Bunter in his shirt sleeves.

‘The problem,' said Giles, ‘is that this really
is
a great deal of money. The copyrights. Especially potentially, in the future, a huge deal of money. And the manuscripts. It is surprising what these American institutions will pay.' Giles got out a large handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘It is really astonishing, in fact.'

‘How do you mean hand over?' said Struan. ‘Do you mean, like a different agent?' He started pushing the chair again and Giles followed, sweating.

‘I was going to push off anyway,' said Giles, ‘from the agent bit. Retire, don't you know. But I'm in the will, you see. I'm Phil's executor. I administer the trust. I can't retire from that.'

‘Do you mean,' said Struan, pushing carefully up a slope, ‘that you've been asked to hand over power of attorney?' Struan knew about that stuff from his dad. He'd had to do most of it, the way it worked out, the house and insurance and that. Money frightened his gran half to death.

‘That's right,' said Giles, ‘power of attorney during his lifetime. To her. And a request to sell the manuscript of
The Pit.
Actually, not just the manuscript, the manuscript and Phil's working copy of the first production. Both of which are in my office safe, I took them off Phil a few years ago as security, and I would like to know how she knows that.'

‘Who?' asked Struan, but Giles had the bit between his teeth.

‘And what I felt,' said Giles, ‘with all this moral pressure swilling about, all this rather free and easy use of blanket moral imperatives, what I felt this morning, was that I just wanted to know what Phil would think about all of it. Because, to be perfectly honest, rather than sell
The Pit,
the Phil I knew would have had his fingernails removed, one by one.'

Struan pushed on a little, considering this. ‘Lord Peter Wimsey,' he said, involuntarily. He'd read all those, one wet summer in the Cuik library, when he was twelve. Lord Peter was a posh detective for English people. Giles snorted.

‘Jolly good, Struan,' he said, ‘jolly good idea. But we haven't got a corpse, have we?'

Giles and Struan looked down at Phillip, then up again.

‘I say,' said Giles, ‘the Men's Pond.'

It was. Struan hadn't meant to go there, exactly. His legs had taken him. At once, he remembered Bill, and his crazy scheme to get Phillip in the pond. He thought, with any luck, it would be too early for any such shenanigans. They just could all go in and have a wee sit down. There was hardly anyone there yet.

‘The Men's Pond,' said Giles, ‘is actually one of my favourite spots. Do you know, I think I might pop in? Were you going to?'

‘Mr Giles,' said Struan, ‘was it Mrs Prys, who was asking for the power of attorney?'

‘It was,' said Giles, ‘yes.'

‘But,' said Struan, ‘how come? She can't get control of his stuff, can she? Not now. They're divorced.'

‘They're not divorced,' said Giles, peering round Struan into the gate of the pond, ‘they only just got married.'

‘Oh,' said Struan, ‘you mean it's the new Mrs Prys, that's who's asking for power of attorney?'

‘Yes,' said Giles, suddenly raising a grin as the leggy figure and smooth pate of Bill glided towards them. ‘Yes, that's what I can't work out. That's who's on the warpath now. Shirin.'

*   *   *

Myfanwy wouldn't be drawn on her cryptic remark about Struan. And she refused to be interested in the car. She was playing hardball altogether, just sitting there, smooth and pressed in bright-blue linen, nodding occasionally, eyes fixed in the middle distance, letting Juliet say again that neither she nor Struan could drive and maybe Shirin had taken the MG to be serviced.

‘Shall we look for it?' said Juliet.

‘We shall not,' said Myfanwy putting on her reading glasses. ‘We shall look at this exam certificate, Juliet.'

‘But,' said Juliet, ‘I know what it says. You just told me.'

‘Well then,' said Myfanwy, ‘we shall work out together how many pounds each one of those little Ds and Es cost us—'

‘I can't do that,' said Juliet, ‘I failed Maths. And anyway, you didn't pay the school fees, the whole last term of it, and you've been spending my education money on Pot Noodles.' And Myfanwy looked at her over her glasses, not surprised enough.

‘Only one person could have told you about your fees,' said Myfanwy, ‘paid or not paid. Or other financial arrangements. I have never involved you in such things, Juliet, on principle, do you see? I don't think children should be caught up in disputes between me and your father, or me and your father's other wives. One of the things I appreciated about Linda was that she respected that.'

‘Anyway,' said Juliet, ‘I don't mind going to Hampstead School.'

‘I was thinking,' said her mother, ‘of La Sainte Union.'

‘You're joking,' said Juliet, ‘I'm not going to a convent. Anyway, it's miles.'

‘Not from the Finchley Road,' said Myfanwy.

‘I won't be living in the Finchley Road,' said Juliet, ‘I've decided. I'm going to stay here.'

Then Myfanwy tapped her ringed fingers significantly on her taut lap. She smiled a pale-pink lipsticked smile, and widened her eyes. She said, ‘Juliet, we agreed six weeks ago that you could spend the summer here. The summer. Because you didn't go on holiday with your friend. Now the summer's over.'

‘I like it here,' said Juliet. ‘I'm better here.'

‘If you had passed your exams,' said Myfanwy, ‘if you were going to college, that might be different. But as it is, you're going to be a schoolgirl again, and the right place for a schoolgirl is at home.'