Old Sins (12 page)

‘Where’s Susan?’ said Julian irritably to Letitia one morning in the following July. ‘The cosmetic factory is still only running at eighty per cent capacity, and I want to know when she thinks it’s going to be at full strength.’

‘She’s just come in,’ said Letitia, ‘in something of a tizz, I would say. Very unlike her to be late. Something must be wrong.’

Susan was sitting in her office eating a doughnut with savage speed. Julian looked at her anxiously.

‘You OK?’

‘I’m just furious, that’s all. I’m sorry I’m late, Julian, but I had to go and see Mum’s landlord. She had a letter this morning, saying she had to be prepared to move out within three months, as he wanted to sell the house.’

‘Well, that’s nonsense. Surely she’s protected by law.’

‘No, she isn’t. The house used to belong to his father, he was a dear old chap, came round every week for the rent, nice as pie. But he died, and the son’s been looking at all the tenancies, and because his dad never worried about making things official and proper leases, and Mum was just glad to get the place after the war, she just signed something without going into it very thoroughly. All it is is a tenancy agreement with a one-month-notice arrangement. I went and shouted at him, but he said he was doing her a big favour giving her three months, and told me to get the hell out and stop wasting his time.’

‘Brave chap,’ said Julian, grinning at her. ‘Sorry,’ he added hastily, watching her face freeze. ‘Can I help?’

‘I don’t think so. I just can’t think what she can do. It sounds awful, I know, but I just don’t want her with us. But I don’t see any option to her living with us again unless she goes and shares with her sister, and they can spend just about fifteen minutes together before they start bickering.’

‘It doesn’t sound awful at all,’ said Julian, who had met Susan’s mother and felt he had never come across such an unpleasant woman with the possible exception of a female commandant in the Gestapo who had conducted his preliminary interrogation when he had been captured during the war. (‘And the Gestapo woman had the mitigating virtue of being rather beautiful,’ he said to Letitia, when describing his early encounters with Meg Tucker. ‘This woman isn’t just unattractive, she’s positively repellent. I cannot imagine how she produced Susan.’)

‘Look, Susan, I really do need to talk work to you now, but let’s have a drink after we’ve finished and I really will do anything I can to help. Will the kids be OK for half an hour?’

‘Oh, I think so. Anna next door will have them in if I ring her. Thank you, Julian. I really do need someone to discuss it with.’

Susan had moved out of her mother’s house a year earlier, and bought a tiny little terrace house in South Ealing, with the help of a sudden and rather suspiciously timely payment from the War Office. (Not even Susan could see how Julian could have forged a letter on War Office paper; she underestimated what he had learnt in the Resistance movement.)

Jenny and Sheila were now ten and eight years old
respectively, pretty but rather surly little girls – probably, Julian thought, as a result of spending too much time with their grandmother. They went to school within walking distance of the house, and Susan generally found life quite astonishingly easier. It took her just ten minutes to drive her van to the factory in the morning; she was earning, despite her strenuous efforts to keep her salary in line with what she considered equitable, quite a lot of money; she could afford to pay the girl next door to look after the girls after school and in the holidays, and was currently planning a package holiday with them on the Costa del Sol. She was endlessly teased about this, not only by Julian and Letitia, but Jim and Adam as well, who never missed an opportunity to point out to her that there were hundreds of people all over the country who couldn’t even afford a weekend in the Isle of Wight never mind jetting off (as they all put it) to the Mediterranean, but for once she was not even contrite. ‘I’ve never had a holiday, and we all need it,’ she kept saying defiantly, poring over her travel brochures.

A week after the disagreeable Mrs Tucker had first been served with notice to quit her flat, Susan came flying into Julian’s office, flushed and radiant.

‘You’ll never believe this,’ she said, ‘but we’ve had another letter from the landlord, telling Mum she can stay. He’s even sent her a new lease offering her a tenancy for an unlimited period. I just can’t believe it. Isn’t it marvellous?’

‘Marvellous,’ said Julian, smiling at her, just a little complacently.

‘Did you –’ Susan stood very still, looking at him in awe. ‘Did you have anything to do with this?’

‘A bit.’

‘But you couldn’t have.’

‘OK then, I didn’t.’

‘Well, what did you do?’

‘Talked to a few people.’

‘What sort of people?’

‘Oh, you know, mildly influential people.’

‘Like?’

‘Well, like a friend of mine who belongs to the local Freemasons’, which our chum the landlord is desperate to join. A reporter on the local paper. Those sort of people.’

‘But what did you actually –’

‘Susan, darling, I think the less you know about it the better. Otherwise you might say something to your entirely charming mother, or perhaps to anyone who might be interested in your knowing anything about it all.’

Susan looked at him thoughtfully. ‘It all smacks of corruption a bit, if you ask me.’

‘I’m not asking you. And hopefully nobody else will. Now if I were you I’d just help your mother sign the lease and get it back to the landlord quickly before he changes his mind.’

‘Oh, Julian . . .’ She stopped, and looked at him very seriously. ‘I do know how good you are to me. And I never seem to thank you properly. How can I?’

‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

They were both surprised, shocked almost, by the invitation. Julian, who had been subconsciously avoiding any kind of close contact with Susan for as long as he could remember, and had planned to spend the evening with an old friend looking at horses at a stable in Buckinghamshire (he felt he deserved some slight reward for his unstinting labours of the past three years) wasn’t sure if he was pleased or sorry he had issued it, but having done so saw it determinedly through. ‘Please, Susan. I’d really like it.’

Susan flushed, looked down at her hands, and then very directly at him. ‘I don’t really think it’s a very good idea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well – because – well, people might talk.’

‘Angel, people have been talking about us for years. We might as well give them at least something worth talking about. Besides, I only want a bit of peace and quiet with you so we can discuss Letitia’s wretched new costing system and how much we want the sales force to use it.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said, choosing to accept this arguably unflattering explanation, ‘that’s all right then. Thank you, I’d like it very much.’

‘Do you want to go home and change? Or shall we go from here?’

‘If we’re only going to talk about costing systems,’ said Susan briskly, ‘I don’t need to get all dolled up, do I? I’ll phone Anna and see if she can babysit. If she can’t I’ll have to ask Mum.’

Julian devoutly hoped that Anna would be able to oblige.

‘Where are you off to, darling?’ said Letitia as he came into her office at half past five to say goodbye.

‘Oh, I’m taking Susan out for a bite to eat. We’re discussing the sales people’s return sheets.’

Letitia looked at him very seriously.

‘Julian, don’t. Please.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, irritably defensive. ‘Mother, just leave me alone, will you? Good night. I won’t be late.’

‘You do know. And I sincerely hope you won’t be.’

Julian slammed the door of her office and wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps he ought to think about getting a house of his own.

Susan was waiting for him in the car park.

‘Before we have dinner,’ said Julian, ‘I want to take you somewhere else. To meet a friend. Won’t take long. I tried to put her off but I couldn’t. Out near Slough. I need to be there by seven. But we should make that.’

‘What sort of a friend?’ said Susan, ever so slightly sulky. ‘What does she do?’

‘Runs around.’

‘I see.’

It was a perfect July evening: the sky was that peculiarly clear light turquoise that follows slightly hazy days, and spangled with tiny orange and grey clouds. It had been hot, but there was a breeze tossing the air about; Julian rolled back the sunroof of his new four wheeled toy, a cream Lagonda, and smiled briefly at Susan.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you look in that pocket there, you should find a map. Can you map read?’

‘Course.’

‘Good. Now it’s near Stoke Poges, this place. Near Burnham Beeches. Got it?’

‘Yes. You want to head out of Slough on the A4. I’ll tell you after that.’

‘OK.’

They pulled into the drive of a large, low house just after seven.

‘Damn,’ said Julian, ‘I think he’s gone.’

‘I thought it was a she we’ve come to see.’

‘It is. But there’s a chaperon involved. Ah, there he is. Tony, hello. Sorry we’re late.’

‘That’s OK. Traffic’s awful, I know. She’s round here, your lady friend. She really is gorgeous. You’re going to love her.’

‘Perhaps I’d better stay here,’ said Susan crossly.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Julian, ‘you’ll like her. Tony, this is Susan Johns. My right-hand woman in the company. Susan, Tony Sargeant.’

Susan nodded slightly coolly at Tony. She felt increasingly silly and miserable as she followed the man into a stable yard.

‘There,’ said Tony, stopping by a bay with a very dark mane, ‘this is She. Gloriana. Absolutely made for you, Julian. Superb hunter, very strong, but graceful too. She’s a honey. I’d love to keep her myself, but I don’t need another mare.’

‘She’s got a very nice head. Lovely expression,’ said Julian, ‘let’s have a look at the rest of her.’

Tony led the mare out into the yard. She was restive, dancing about at the end of her rein. ‘How old is she, did you say?’

‘Four.’

‘She looks younger.’

‘No, just four. She is quite slightly built. But she’s terrifically fast. And strong. She’d make a superb National Hunt horse, if you wanted her for that. Do you want to ride her now?’

‘No. I haven’t got any of the stuff with me,’ said Julian, eyeing Susan who had wandered off down the other end of the yard. Her initial relief at discovering the mysterious female was a horse had given way to boredom and irritation. ‘Anyway, I can’t stop now. But she is beautiful, I agree. I’ll come back and ride her at the weekend, if that’s OK. And thank you very much.’ He stroked the horse’s neck tenderly; scratched her ear. She snorted with pleasure. ‘He’s got a way with women,’ said Tony to Susan, laughing.

‘I daresay,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s not a side of him we see much of at work.’

‘Oh, come on, you misery,’ said Julian, taking her hand. It was the first time he had ever touched her. She shivered; she couldn’t help it. He noticed, and dropped her hand again, quickly. ‘You must be hungry.’

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, as the Lagonda swung out into the lane. ‘Very boring for you, I’m afraid.’

‘It was a pretty cheap joke,’ said Susan. ‘Making me think we were going to meet some woman.’

‘Susan!’ said Julian, ‘I do declare you were jealous.’

Susan looked at him very seriously. ‘Not jealous, Julian. But I don’t like being made a fool of. Even in very small ways. OK?’

‘OK. Sorry. Now get that map out again, and find somewhere called Aston Clinton. That’s where we’re going. To a restaurant called the Bell. You’ll like it. And I won’t make a fool of you ever again. Promise.’

The Bell was not very full. They sat outside in the garden to savour the evening and the menu, and Julian ordered a bottle of champagne.

‘I don’t know how you think you’re going to drive home,’ said Susan, ‘I’m not going to have any of that, and you’ll get awfully drunk.’

‘Oh, go on,’ said Julian, ‘just this once. For me. Try it. You’ll love it, honestly you will.’

‘No,’ said Susan.

‘All right. But you’re missing one of life’s great pleasures. Tell you what, I’ll get some orange juice and have it as Bucks Fizz and then maybe you’ll be persuaded to try it.’

‘Maybe. But I don’t think so. Tell me, what would you say life’s other great pleasures are? For you?’

‘Oh, horses. Cars. Women. Making money.’

‘What a corrupt list.’

‘I’m a corrupt person. You should know that by now.’

‘No,’ she said, very serious. ‘I don’t. Not personally. I’m prepared to believe it, but I don’t have any evidence of my own. Could I have some crisps?’

‘I’ll try,’ said Julian, wondering if they knew about crisps at the Bell.

The barman looked disdainful but provided a bowl of nuts, which Susan demolished in minutes, and while she was waiting for a second, and a replenishment of her orange juice, took a sip of Julian’s Bucks Fizz.

‘Yes,’ she said, savouring it carefully, ‘it is quite nice. It’s a little bit like orange and soda, isn’t it? You should try that, you know. Much better for you.’

‘Well, I suppose I might,’ said Julian, allowing himself for a moment to contemplate the terrible prospect of drinking orange and soda at parties. ‘Now shall I get a glass for you to have a bit more?’

‘No, thank you. I’ll just have the occasional sip of yours. I didn’t know you liked horses.’

‘You don’t know a lot of things about me. I love horses. Always have. Until we came to London, I rode all the time.’

‘I suppose you went hunting and that sort of thing.’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you disapprove?’

‘Yes, I do. But it’s nothing to do with me.’

‘True. And your disapproval is nothing to do with me, so I won’t try to convert you.’

‘No, don’t. You’d be wasting your breath.’

She took another sip of his drink. ‘I could get to like this, though.’

‘Be careful, Susan. One vice leads to another. Talking of vice, when are you off to the Med?’

‘Oh, I’m so tired of everyone going on about that. In a fortnight. The girls are so excited.’