Precious Time (29 page)

Out of his car, he looked across the courtyard to see the energetic figure of Miss Costello hurling a cardboard box into the skip. Only the other day he had wished he had the courage to clear the decks for his father and now an outsider was doing precisely that. The thought irritated him. He strolled over, uncomfortably aware that he was trying too hard to put on a casual air.

Seeing him, but not stopping what she was doing, she said, ‘You’ve got your exhaust fixed then?’

‘And Dad’s got you hard at work even on a Sunday.’

She tipped another box into the skip and a gust of wind caught some sheets of newspaper. She pushed them down hard. Wiping her hands on the back of her close-fitting jeans, she said, ‘Understand this, Master Liberty, it’s me who sets the agenda. I decide the hours I work.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a minute. Here, let me help you.’ He expected her to refuse his offer, but she didn’t and between them they added a smelly rolled-up rug to the pile of rubbish. ‘Caspar will be furious if he thinks you’re chucking away the family heirlooms.’ His tone was light, but she didn’t say anything, merely reached for a black plastic sack and threw it on top of the rug. ‘I believe you had the pleasure of meeting him last night,’ he added.

‘I’d had that pleasure already.’

‘Really?’

‘In the supermarket, in Deaconsbridge. I decided then and there that he was the rudest, most self-centred, arrogant man I’d ever set eyes on.’

Jonah tried not to smile. ‘And did last night alter your opinion?’

She didn’t answer him. Instead she said, ‘If you’re looking for your father, he’s in the library.’

He was clearly being dismissed and, baffled, he wondered what he had done to deserve such frostiness. ‘Miss Costello, you don’t like me very much, do you?’

She paused, lifted her chin and looked him dead in the eye, her small face stern. ‘Does that bother you?’

He took from her a dusty dried flower arrangement, which Val had put together a long time ago, and placed it carefully in the skip.

He was used to brutal honesty from his family, but not from someone he hardly knew. He decided to fight back, force her to drop the annoying deadpan manner he was sure she had adopted for his benefit. ‘If you’re going to be my stepmother,’ he said mildly, ‘don’t you think we ought to make more of an effort to get along?’ He watched her closely for her response.

‘Well, what, can I say?’ she said, her manner giving nothing away.

‘I suppose you’re right. How do you suggest we go about it, young Master Liberty?’

‘First you can stop calling me Master Liberty. My name’s Jonah.

And second, you can be honest with me.’

‘Oh, I don’t know whether that’s a good idea. Families are rarely honest with each other, are they? There’s always something we like to keep from each other. By the way, who spilled the beans about your father and me getting hitched?’

‘Dad told Caspar last night.’

The conversation wasn’t going at all how Jonah had thought it would. Who was bluffing who? But he was determined to get a straight answer to a straight question. ‘Miss Costello, please, will you level with me?’

She held up a hand. ‘Don’t be so formal. Call me Mother. Or would you prefer Mum?’

‘Please,’ he tried again, ‘a straight answer for a straight question.

Are you indulging my father by playing along with another of his self-satisfying games?’

‘As I always tell Ned, you must believe what you want to believe.’

‘In that case, I don’t believe a word of what my father has told Caspar. Or that you’re a gold-digger on the make as my brother thinks you are.’

She stuck out her chest and placed her hands on her hips

provocatively. ‘Is that because you don’t fancy me in the role of stepmother?’

He knew she was teasing him, but her playful tone and the sight of her breasts showing through her thin T-shirt were an unexpected turn-on. ‘I’m afraid that imagining you as my stepmother would take too much suspension of disbelief.’ He lowered his gaze. He had no choice but to accept that he wouldn’t get any further with her. Exasperated, he said, ‘Where did you say my father was?’

‘He’s in the library with Ned.’

As Clara watched Jonah go inside, she almost felt sorry for him.

What in the world was the incorrigible man up to now? He might have had the decency to warn her that not only was she his standin daughter but also his fiancee. How would they explain that to Dr Singh?

On his way through the house to the library, Jonah noted the changes and improvements Miss Costello had single-handedly brought about. Whatever his feelings towards her - and he wasn’t entirely sure what they were - he couldn’t fail to be impressed by the effect she had had on Mermaid House. There was a lightness about it that he hadn’t felt in years. No, more than that: it was as though, with each room she had touched, the house was being coaxed out of mourning, something which had been going on for as long as he could remember. He poked his head round the dining-room door, which was ajar. He saw and smelt yet more telltale signs of Miss Costello’s refreshing handiwork - polished wood, flowers in the grate and on the table, sparkling glass and silverware on the shelves ( ť’ of the gleaming glass-fronted cabinets. The transformation was incredible.

Hearing a squeal of high-pitched laughter, he carried on towards the library, calling to his father so that he couldn’t be accused of turning up unannounced. He pushed open the door and braced himself for another in a long line of difficult encounters. But he had miscalculated his father’s mood.

‘Jonah? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to see you, not when I’m suddenly flavour of the week, but your timing is perfect. Pull up a chair and help me. This cheeky whippersnapper has me on the run.’

The room hadn’t yet received the Miss C treatment, and after shifting a dusty pile of National Geographies from a chair to the floor, Jonah joined them in the bay window where a game of draughts was in progress. The ‘cheeky whippersnapper’ smiled exuberantly at him. ‘I’ve just taken another of Mr Liberty’s pieces,’

he said proudly. He waved the grubby ivory disc in front of Jonah.

‘And look at all these other pieces I’ve got.’

‘Enough of the boasting, young man. Now; ssh! I need peace and quiet while I think out my next move. What do you advise, Jonah?’

Jonah observed the board, the same board on which he had

learned to play both chess and draughts - games his father had always played ruthlessly to win, no matter the age or ability of his opponent. On several occasions Val had told him to give Jonah a fighting chance. ‘He’s only a child. How will he ever improve if you don’t encourage him?’ Looking at the board now and its scene of one-sided carnage, Jonah could only conclude that either Ned was a child genius, or Val’s advice had finally been heeded: Gabriel was down to just a few pieces. ‘Strikes me that you’re in real trouble, Dad,’ he said. ‘Any move open to you looks risky to me.’

‘And since when have I ever been afraid of taking a risk?’ Licking his mottled lips, Gabriel nudged one of his few remaining pieces forward. ‘There now, you little rascal, pick the bones out of that!’

Lost in the depths of the leather chair opposite, and resting his chin on a knee drawn up close to his chest, the boy stared hard at the board, his bright eyes flicking from left to right. The only sound in the room was Gabriel’s wheezing - was it louder than it had been? and the steady ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Jonah willed Ned to see for himself that with one simple move he could win. A small hand hovered over the left of the board. Jonah felt disappointed; Ned had missed the obvious. He cleared his throat to attract Ned’s attention and looked meaningfully at the other side of the board. A moment passed before Ned took the hint, but then his hand moved towards one of his kings, and with a burst of gleeful realisation he claimed the last of Gabriel’s pieces. He was gracious in his victory. He sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘Mr Liberty, I think you’ve lost.’

Gabriel stared at the board and slowly smiled. ‘Clearly I’ve been too good a teacher. Well done, young man.’ He brought his hands together and gave him a short round of applause. Jonah noticed that each clap made his father wince.

Leaning forward in his chair and repositioning his triumphant army, Ned said, ‘Can we play again?’

Gabriel groaned. ‘Not now. Maybe after lunch. My poor old brain needs a rest. You run along and tell your mother what a smart lad you are while I have a chat with my son; I doubt I’ll need my brain for that.’

Alone, and expecting his father’s mood to change, Jonah started setting out the board ready for another game. He said, ‘Do you remember teaching me to play?’

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, setting off a crackle of dry joints. ‘Like it was yesterday. And talking of yesterday, I imagine that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Come to get the news straight from the horse’s mouth about my approaching marriage, I presume.’

The last of the draughtsmen lined up, Jonah said, ‘Why are you doing this, Dad?’

‘What? Marrying the delectable Miss Costello? Wouldn’t you if you had the opportunity?’

Jonah had let one conversation slip out of his grasp and had no intention of this one going the same way. ‘We’re not talking about me, Dad,’ he said firmly. ‘We’re discussing why you’re pretending to Caspar that you’re marrying the delectable Miss Costello, as you describe her.’

‘Who said anything about pretending?’

‘I did. It’s another of your games, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll say this for you, Jonah, you’re verging on the astute.’

‘So why taunt Caspar?’

‘Because it was fun! You should have seen the feckless little runt. I thought he was going to pass out on me with shock. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years.’

‘But is it right to do so at somebody else’s expense?’

Gabriel waved aside the implied criticism. ‘What do I care for Caspar’s finer feelings? When did he or Damson ever care about mine, eh?’

‘Am I not to be included in that condemnation?’

‘Carry on with this interrogation and you might well find yourself top of the list!’ His father turned abruptly and looked out of the window. ‘Damn! It’s started raining. I was hoping to take young Ned for a walk later on. Do you want to stay for lunch? Or have you something better to do?’

Jonah stood next to his father and stared through the dirty glass at the heavy downpour that was flattening the daffodils on the sloping lawn. He couldn’t remember the last time his father had made an invitation so spontaneously. He didn’t know how or why, but it felt as though a small bridge had just been crossed. Prepared to take whatever was on offer, he said, ‘Lunch would be great. Thanks. Do you want me to see to it while you prepare yourself for another whipping at the hands of your protege?’

Upstairs, in what had been Val Liberty’s bedroom, Clara was sorting through the dead woman’s belongings. She had wondered who had been responsible for the clutter in the house, and now felt sure she had found the culprit: the second Mrs Liberty had been an inveterate hoarder.

Judging from the drawers, cupboards, bedside cabinets and

wardrobes, she had never thrown anything away. She had kept all sort of curious things: train tickets to Sheffield and Manchester, dental appointment cards, hairdresser’s receipts, shopping lists, bent hairpins, ancient suspender belts, empty scent bottles, hairbrushes, crumbling bath cubes, packs of safety-pins and half-used tubes of hand-cream. There was a collection of hot-water bottles, so old and perished they had become glued together into the kind of rubbery collage the Tate Modern might exhibit. There were several boxes of Carmen heated rollers as well as one of those inflatable hood devices for drying your hair.

Mr Liberty had given her carte blanche to get rid of everything.

‘None of it’s of any use to me, so you might just as well ditch the lot,’

he had said. This was after she had arrived for work first thing that morning and told him she wanted a change from scrubbing and polishing.

‘Aha! Trying to get out of the heavy-duty work so you can take it easy with the light stuff, are you?’

‘Keep the words of love and kindness for your family, Mr Liberty.

Did you enjoy your late-night cigar-and-brandy session with your son?’

He had cracked the air with a bellow of laughter. ‘Immensely. I’ll tell you about it later when I bring you your elevenses. Ned, m’boy, you stay with me. Today’s the day you learn to play draughts.’

Folding yet another thick woollen skirt and adding it to the bag of clothes she had already sorted - there were two piles, one destined for a charity shop and the other for the skip - Clara thought how funny it was that the three of them had slipped into such an unlikely but easy-going routine. Ned was perfectly at home with Mr Liberty, whom he probably regarded as a temporary grandfather. Which was fine by her, because, as far as she could see, they were all getting something out of the week. Mr Liberty was getting spring-cleaned, Ned was being entertained and taught to play draughts, and she was getting paid enough to convince herself that she hadn’t been mad in taking on such an extraordinary assignment.

Last night, after reading Ned a bedtime story, she had written her first postcard home to Louise and the gang.

I can’t believe it’s only a week since Ned and I set off in Winnie.

It feels like we’ve been away for ever. Having the most

unbelievable time. Not quite what I’d had in mind, but lots of fun all the same. We’re doing missionary work (I’ll explain later), staying with a crazy man in the Peak District - so far north for you, Louise, you’d need a pocket phrase book! Ned is having the time of his life. He’s four going on fourteen now. More news in the next card. Love to everyone, Clara.

P.S. Missing work? Get real!

She had deliberately omitted to mention that she had turned herself into a cleaner for a week, because she knew that Louise would despatch David to fetch her home.

With the rails of the first wardrobe empty now, she stood on a chair to clear out the stuff from the top shelf. She found a battered hatbox hidden beneath a pink candlewick bedspread. It was quite heavy, so she took off the lid and found that it contained a bundle of large notebooks.