The Birthday Present (14 page)

“Of course I had nothing to do with it.”

“Only joking, darling. Don't be cross.”

She had seriously frightened him. But no more was said about Lloyd and they talked of other things. Still undecided as to how to get to speak to Juliet Case, Ivor was due to go on television next morning—the day, as it happened, of Margaret Thatcher's departure—and talk about the worsening crisis in Kuwait. These TV studios provide a waiting room for people appearing on their programs, a kind of small lounge with chairs round a table where coffee, tea, or water is brought to them until it's their turn to go on and they're called. There's a TV screen on which they can watch the program they will be on. Ivor had done his stint, answered the questions put to him, and gone back into the waiting room to pick up the briefcase he'd left there. Aaron Hunter was sitting in one of the chairs, reading the
Guardian.
Ivor recognized him at once, the rather rubbery blank face that could become handsome or hideous at the actor's will, the full lips, the ultrashort hair the color of aging thatch. He only spoke to him because he had to in order to retrieve the case that was on the floor beside Hunter's left leg.

“Excuse me, would you? That's my briefcase.”

Hunter looked up from his paper and Ivor saw his flat light blue eyes, steady and expressionless. “You're Ivor Tesham. Aaron Hunter. You were good.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course I can't agree with the politics.”

“No? Fortunately for me, many do.”

A shrug of the shoulders from Hunter. He seemed about to say more but he was called at that moment. Ivor picked up his case and left, wondering what the actor was going to be interviewed about. The play he was currently in, he supposed. Two days before, when closely examining
The Times
for more possible news of Sean Lynch, he had come upon a photograph of Hunter on a page devoted to theater and opera notices. It was one of those pictures, usually of an actor and actress in a scene from the play, grappling with each other or in a passionate clinch, which newspapers insert into reviews. This was a fight, the two of them struggling on a marble floor. The man was Hunter but the woman was no one Ivor had ever heard of.

But the interview wasn't about the play, though it was mentioned in passing. I watched the program myself and what Aaron Hunter talked about was sleaze. Specifically, political scandal, politicians who were unfaithful to their wives or stayed in hotels paid for by sheikhs or accepted expensive presents and lied to Parliament afterward. He blamed, somewhat obscurely, the party machine and put forward the
view that proportional representation and more independent members (there were none at the time) would provide an antidote. The interviewer suggested that perhaps Hunter himself should stand at the next election, which would be in 1992. Hunter said he might at that—who knew?

About this, at the time, Ivor knew nothing. He was on his way in a taxi to St. Margaret's, Westminster, where at ten that morning the memorial service for Sandy Caxton was to be held. While a distinguished baritone sang “Birth and Fortune I Despise” (not exactly Ivor's own sentiments) from Sandy's favorite
Saul,
he sat in the row behind Erica Caxton and her children, thinking of Sean Lynch. His own name might one day be associated with Sean Lynch's and the IRA and then his presence, pious and caring, at this service to bid farewell to a murdered Northern Ireland Secretary, would be remembered.

The same day Sean Lynch appeared in court and was immediately released without any case to answer. No explanation was given, of course, but it must have been that there was insufficient evidence to warrant taking matters further. Ivor was still terribly afraid of Dermot's regaining consciousness and telling what he knew, but he no longer felt that he was under threat of being labeled some sort of IRA informer or spy. For a while, apparently, he had even been afraid of going to prison. Now the lack of evidence against Sean Lynch lifted a load from his mind. He could concentrate on the pleasant task of getting to know Juliet Case.

L
ast week I got the sack. They didn't use that term, naturally they didn't, but a worse one I thought was a joke that only came up in TV comedy. The Librarian, who's now called the Director, called me in and said—he actually said and he wasn't smiling—they were going to have to let me go.

It wasn't a total surprise. The Library of British History had been in a bad way for quite a time. We rely on private funding and though we've applied for government grants we're always turned down. I'm going to start saying “they” now, “we” being inappropriate, so it was “they” who had to sell one of our collections last year and it fetched a lot of money, but not enough. The Director told me they had decided to close a whole floor down and of course it was my floor where the histories of the late medieval period are kept. The collection wouldn't be sold, he said with a kindly smile, as if to comfort me, and actually said that if I ever wanted to look at anything among all that sixteenth-century stuff, there would be no difficulty about “granting me access.”

I was on a month's notice, that month charmingly coming
to an end a week before Christmas. They would pay me for the month but prefer me to go at the end of the week. Once I'd got over the shock, my big anxiety was how I was going to pay the mortgage. I'd have to find another job but I didn't know where to start. Companies or local authorities who run libraries aren't exactly going down on their knees, begging the unemployed to come and work for them. But I made a start the evening of my last day at the library, noting down every possibility I found in five sets of situations-vacant columns and applying for ten of them—eight of these extremely unlikely.

Mummy phoned. The only solution she could come up with when I told her was to give up the flat and come and live with her in Ongar. In case you don't know—and why should you?—Ongar is a pretty village–cum–outer suburb served by volunteer-run trains you have to catch in Epping. Needless to say, there are no jobs in Ongar, no buses going anywhere one might want to go to, and nothing to do in the evenings. When my father died two years ago he left everything to my mother, house, apartment on the Costa del Sol, a lot of money—well, three hundred thousand, which is a lot to me. I got nothing. I'd have been amazed, knowing my own luck or lack of it, if I had. No doubt he thought I was doing all right. I was young, I had a job and a home of my own. But I've sometimes thought that it wouldn't have hurt Mummy to give me, say, fifty thousand. Still, she didn't. I don't think it would have crossed her mind.

In all the misery of being sacked I had forgotten about the pearls. I only found them because I couldn't remember how to reset the clock on the microwave and the instructions were in that drawer. When I fixed the clock I opened the case the pearls were in, looked at them and wondered how much they were worth. If it was only five thousand pounds it
would be a godsend to me now, but if they were worth four times that they'd pay off my mortgage. Why shouldn't I take them to Asprey's and ask them? I could mention Ivor Tesham's name, give them his phone number, tell them to call him, and inquire. But I knew I couldn't rely on him agreeing that he'd given them to me. Perhaps he would if he thought I knew too much about what happened the night of the birthday present, when Hebe and that other man died and the driver was injured. But I didn't. I suspected him but I couldn't see how he might have been involved and, as far as I knew, he was innocent.

It was a month since I'd been to Irving Road. I'd called Gerry's number three times. The first time a girl who wasn't Grania or Lucy answered. I don't know who she was, she didn't say. I took care to make my second call fairly late in the evening so that Gerry was bound to answer. He sounded tired and he said Justin was being very difficult, he'd stopped talking, just maintained silence, and though he slept in bed with him most nights, he was wakeful and restless and of course kept Gerry awake. He was going to have to have a nanny, though it would be a strain to afford it. He'd interviewed two women who answered his advertisement for a nanny, but both were so unsuitable it was a joke. The girl who had answered the phone to me was called Emily and was a friend of Grania's, but she was only temporary and had had to leave when her university term started. I asked him if I could do anything but he said, quite coldly I thought, that he was already overwhelmed with offers. It wasn't a shortage of help that was the trouble but the constant change of helpers. I offered again the next time I phoned and he started the conversation by saying he couldn't stop. He'd been on the point of leaving the house—his mother was babysitting—
and he had a taxi waiting. No, he didn't need me, thanks very much. His mother was being wonderful.

Naturally, I wondered where he was going in a taxi. I was surprised he could afford taxis, but perhaps he'd got the promotion and consequent salary rise Hebe had said he'd been promised. And I thought a bit about the unfairness of life. I who had no friends and virtually no money had got the sack, while Gerry Furnal, who had Justin and a house and was surrounded by women friends and supporters, was getting a step up the ladder and more money. And now, it appeared, was going out at eight in the evening in a taxi to meet someone—a girl? Was it possible he had found himself a girlfriend when Hebe had been dead for less than a year? He should have been meeting me. I was the suitable one, the woman he had known for years, his dead wife's friend.

Didn't he care about Justin losing the power of speech? Because that's what it was. I'd heard of it happening to children as the result of some trauma, loss of a parent or a sibling, for instance. Gerry had passed over it lightly as if it wasn't important and he went on letting his little boy be looked after by one empty-headed female after another, the sort that thinks only about their appearance and men and sex.

T
HE CLOTHES I'D
brought back with me from Irving Road, I mean the kinky weird stuff, were still in the case behind my sofa bed. I hadn't looked inside it again but I did that evening. Again I imagined Hebe wearing the boots and the corset and nothing else, spread out on a bed with Ivor Tesham standing over her, his eyes on her, and again I got that excited feeling. I suppose I was putting myself in her place and I thought of taking these things back and showing
them to Gerry. Why not? The truth was that I should have shown them to him when he first asked me to clear out Hebe's wardrobe. If I showed them to him and showed him the pearls too, if I told him the pearls didn't come from the British Home Stores but were a very valuable gift from someone, he'd know what Hebe was really like. He'd know he was well rid of her.

Christmas came and as usual everything stopped. Letters weren't delivered, except the ones that were Christmas cards, so there was no chance of getting replies to my job applications. I went to Ongar to have what Mummy calls “festivities” with her. When she suggested it, I asked why we couldn't go to her place in Spain instead. At least there would be some sunshine there. She said she had put the house on the market, she couldn't afford the upkeep, and she's had an offer, so to forget it. Christmas in Ongar is normally grim, but this time it was worse, with her saying what was to become of me every few minutes and coming up as often with her own answer: live with her in that bit of the house she'll have converted for me. The present she gave me was a twinset, a garment or, rather, two garments I thought had gone out of fashion for good about thirty years ago. It was lilac and it seemed to me about the biggest antithesis of that kinky stuff Hebe had that you could think of. I came home next day, bringing with me about five pounds of meat from the largest turkey two people ever sat down to eat together. Still, it was food I didn't have to spend money on.

Seven replies finally came to the ten job applications I'd sent, six to say the vacancy had been filled and one offering me an interview. This wasn't really a librarian's job at all but PA to the director of a small museum in the City “with the chance of outstanding work leading to an assistant curator's post.” I've never been much good at interviews. If I'm asked
personal questions, and I'm bound to be, I get flustered and defensive—or so I've been told. The interview was for the Thursday in the following week and when Mummy phoned that evening I told her about it.

“If you get it,” she said, “it would be quite convenient for you living here. I mean, being in the City. Where did you say in the City?”

I hadn't said. “Bishopsgate.”

“Excellent,” she said. “You come and live here with me and you could take the Central Line from Epping to Liverpool Street. It takes just about an hour.”

Not to mention the half-hour spent waiting for the train first.

“If I get the job,” I said, “I wouldn't need to live in Ongar. I can go on living here. Or I might move in with Callum.”

That was met with disapproval, as I knew it would be. “Once you do that,” she said, “you can give up all hope of marrying him.”

An acrimonious discussion followed, with me saying every married couple I knew had lived together before they were married and her replying that all she could say was that I must know some very unprincipled people. While she reverted to the “lovely home” she was offering me, I couldn't help asking myself if I was mad. Was I really getting angry and shouting at her over a man who didn't exist?

“You could have the whole top floor, you know,” she said. “I've told you again and again, I don't mind spending money on having it converted.”

But you'd mind handing it over to me instead, I thought. That night I was very near to deciding to take the pearls to a jeweler's next day. But I didn't. After sleepless hours, worrying about being alone—suppose I died, who would ever find me?—lack of money, the mortgage, and how I'd get on
at the interview, I fell asleep at four, only to wake up wondering if the jeweler might call not Asprey's but the police. I seemed to recall reading somewhere that this is what jewelers do if they suspect they're being offered stolen goods. Well, they were, that's what they would be offered. I dared not do it.