The Glass Lake (40 page)

“My aunt?” Clio was alarmed. “There isn't anything wrong, is there?”

“No, she just wanted to know your movements, if you had any free time on your own.”

Clio shrugged at Kit. “Why on earth did she want to know that?” she said.

“I don't know. I think she may have wanted to take you out somewhere, she was very anxious to be filled in on your timetable.”

It was a mystery. Aunt Maura, in London.

“Is she going to ring again?” Clio wanted to know.

“I'm not sure. But if she does want to take you out then I assume it will be in order.”

Clio's eyes met Kit's and began to dance. “If she does ring again, then it would be nice to see her,” Clio said in her fawning voice.

“Yes, well, of course.”

“Maura's not in London, she's back in Lough Glass playing golf,” Kit whispered later.

“I know, but it must be some glorious mistake sent by God and Saint Patrick and Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases. Go out and ring and leave a message for me.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere, phone box in the street. They'll think you're in the bathroom.”

Kit found a red phone box and put the money in. “May I speak to Cliona Kelly, it's her aunt,” she asked the little sister who minded the door.

In a moment Kit was put through to Cliona in the recreation room. “Hallo,” she whispered, terrified that it was all going to be unmasked.

“Oh, Aunt Maura, how nice of you to call. Mother and Father were so much hoping you would get in touch.”

Kit listened wordlessly to the easy flow of Clio's lies. They would so much love to meet Aunt Maura at five o'clock tomorrow. No, no, Mother Lucy would be happy to let Kit and herself out for just a few hours.

“Aren't you lucky,” said Jane Wall. “Imagine your aunt being in London.”

“I know,” said Clio. “Makes you believe in fate.”

“What will we do?” Clio asked. “Where will we go?”

“You go where you like. I'm going off on my own.”

“Oh, Kit, you can't. We can go on our own, but together.”

“You're the one who said it was ludicrous, grown-up women like us being tied up in a convent.”

“Well, it is, of course, but it doesn't mean you're going to get into some kind of mood and go off and leave me. I got you this free time after all, it was my aunt who was in London.”

“You know as well as I there was no aunt in London. It was some kind of mistake that poor sister at the door made.”

“It's still me that got it.”

“No it isn't. I was the one who went out to a phone box.”

“Where are you going?” Clio demanded.

“I'm not telling you. I'm going nowhere, I'm just trying to be free.”

“We can be free together, and have a bit of fun.”

“No we can't. Stop whining, Clio. Do what you like, we'll meet at ten and then you can tell me everything.”

“I hate you at times.”

“I know, I hate you at times too, but a lot of the time we get on quite well,” Kit said.

“I can't imagine why,” Clio grumbled.

Kit had the map and she knew where to catch the Underground to Earl's Court. But first she had to shake Clio. “You've been talking about Soho since we were fifteen. You just get on a bus and get out at Piccadilly Circus.”

“You're meeting someone, I know that's what you're doing,” Clio said.

“Clio, already you're eating into the bit of free time we have. Will you get the bus or will you not?”

When she was sure that the bus had gone out of view carrying Clio aboard, Kit ran down the steps of the station and took the Circle Line. At least she would see the house where Lena and Louis Gray lived. She would leave a note and maybe talk to this Mrs. Brown. Once or twice she had asked in letters who Mrs. Brown was, but there had never been a real explanation. Kit felt a surge of excitement well up in her throat. In twenty minutes she would be there.

Kit had thought it would be a more fashionable street. Somehow she had always seen it as a place with big houses that had drives leading up to them. She thought that Mrs. Brown might be an aunt, or a relative anyway. A rich woman whom they partly looked after. But this was definitely the road. And number 27 was definitely the place she had been writing letters for almost four years.

Lena had never said the place was elegant, but neither had she said it was so ordinary. The paint was peeling on several of the doors and nearby the railings were rusty. There were dustbins in the street and in basements. It wasn't the kind of place that this friend of Mother's should be living in.

Kit looked at her own reflection in a window. She had dressed carefully, in her best tartan skirt, and a yellow blouse. She wore a tartan scarf around her neck, a present from Maura. She had put on lipstick, of course, as soon as she left the convent gate. Over her shoulder she wore a black shoulder bag. Her long dark curly hair was tied up with a smart black ribbon. She thought Lena would think she had made an effort, that is, if Lena was there. Anyway this Mrs. Brown would tell her that Kit was a smart girl.

With a feeling of anxiety that was near dread, something she couldn't understand, Kit McMahon knocked on the door of number 27.

         

Louis had come into Millar's at lunchtime. “Quick half pint?” he asked Lena

Jessie Park always liked to see Louis Gray, he had such distinction and good looks. She wagged her finger at him. “You don't come to see us nearly often enough,” she said with mock severity. Jessie had certainly improved over the years. Her hair was no longer the wild bird's nest of hair. She wore a smart gray dress with a blue and gold scarf, her nails were painted. She looked a perfectly acceptable London businesswoman.

“You look very lovely today, Jessie,” he said.

Her blush and smile were predictable, Lena had seen the same response on the faces of so many women since she had been with Louis. A response to flattery. An innocent pleasure at being appreciated and admired.

Lena excused herself from the clients. This was important. Louis never came to see her at work. A sudden fear came to her. Had Kit arrived? Had she met Louis? Then she told herself this was impossible. She had checked in the convent where the girls were staying. There would be no chance of Kit being released during the daytime, the educational program was too intense.

They walked side by side to the pub nearby, and she sat at the table while he bought them a drink.

“Remember you tried to make me get this week off,” he said.

“Yes.” She had begged him, beseeched, offered to take them to any hotel…offered to go where he'd choose. But he had said it was impossible, he was needed at the hotel. He had become annoyed about it also, claiming that Lena never accepted that he too had responsibilities at work. She had dropped it.

“You go alone if you need a holiday so badly,” he had said.

But Lena couldn't leave number 27 knowing that Kit McMahon was on her way there to give her a surprise. She couldn't risk that Kit might meet Louis and learn everything.

His smile was as warm as ever. “My love…wasn't it well that you didn't let me weaken and take a little holiday?”

“Why was that?” She forced her voice to be up and bright.

“They're sending me to Paris,” he said triumphantly.

“To Paris?” Her heart was like a stone.

“Not forever…just for ten days. To see how this French hotel is run. It's an exchange. A Frenchman is coming here. Won't that set their pulses racing at the Dryden?”

“Not as much as you do.” It was an automatic response, but oddly it came out wrong. It sounded bitter, it sounded like an accusation.

“So, I'm off.”

“You're off?”

“Well, you can hardly come with me, can you?” he asked.

“I suppose I could get some time…”

“You don't have a passport,” Louis said. His glance was very level. Of course Lena didn't have a passport. How could a dead woman apply to get a passport? He could go abroad forever without her.

“When do you go?” she asked.

“I thought today,” he said.

Lena's head felt very heavy, as if it was a great weight to lift up and look him in the eye. “Do you love me at all, Louis?” she asked.

“I love you very much,” he said. There was a silence. “You believe me?” he asked.

“I don't know.” Her voice was bleak. She saw the impatience in his face. This was what he hated, but she was too tired, too weary to care. And he was going anyway, whether she was light and cheerful, or heavy and gloom-laden.

“Well, you should know,” he said. “Why would I stay if I didn't love you. I'm here, aren't I?”

“That's right.” She was resigned.

“Lena, don't make me go with this big draggy feeling of guilt about it. It's an opportunity, it's a chance, it's what we want. You are making squeaks just like a wife now. It's not like you.”

“No, you're right. It's much more like me to be jolly and full of smiles and turn a blind eye to what's happening.”

“And what is happening?” His voice was very cold.

“What's happening is that you are treating me like dirt. You are coming in all hours of the night…”

“Oh God, no. Not a scene in a public place.” He put his head in his hands.

“What's happening is that you know you can do anything you bloody well like. You don't have to marry me because I'm dead. You don't have to take me abroad because I'm dead. When I die you won't even have to bury me because I'm dead and buried already. Did you think of that, did you?” Her laugh had a hysterical tinge.

“Jesus, Lena, get ahold of yourself.” He looked around him, alarmed.

“I've got ahold of myself all right, but I have no hold on you, none at all.”

Now he was angry. “Nor should you have. We don't believe in all that business of tying each other down, we've been through this. Love isn't about making rules—thou shalt not do this or do that…”

“And love certainly isn't about going off to France with whatever bit of stuff you're sleeping with nowadays.”

“Lena, you're disgusting. Ring the Dryden, ask them am I doing an exchange, ask them.”

“Give me credit for something, for some bloody bit of dignity. Do you think I'd lower myself to make a call like that to check on you?”

“See, you have it every way now. You want proof, I give you proof, you won't take it.”

“Go to Paris. I'm sick of you, Louis, go there and stay there.”

“I just might,” he said. “And if I do…you sent me.”

         

The afternoon was stifling. Jessie looked at her several times, but always Lena waved away any question or sympathy.

“Not bad news, was it?” Dawn asked,

“Absolutely not. Louis is going to France, I may join him there at the weekend.”

“Aren't you a lucky couple,” Dawn said in genuine admiration.

At six o'clock with a great sense of relief, she put her cover on her typewriter, locked her files into her drawer, and left the office. Louis would be out of the flat by now. He would have gone straight home and packed his things. The only problem was how much he had packed. Enough for ten days in France, or enough for a longer time away from her. And as he had said, it was she who sent him.

She put off the evil moment of arriving home, and went to a pub.

“You're too good-looking to drink alone,” the barman said as Lena bought her gin and tonic.

“Chat me up at your peril,” she said to him.

He laughed but he moved away smartly. There was something about her eyes that made him know she wasn't joking.

         

Ivy made tea for the strikingly attractive Irish girl in her fresh yellow blouse and tartan skirt. She was a younger version of Lena, with the same shiny curly hair, and big dark eyes.

“I thought you'd be different, Mrs. Brown. I've been sending you letters for years, I didn't know you'd be…” She paused.

“I'd be what?” Ivy had a mock threatening look.

“Well, young and kind of fun. I got the impression you were old and sort of making people be quiet in front of you.”

“Is that what Lena wrote about me?”

“No. She wrote nothing about you, she wrote always about me. I know so little of her life here, but all about her time with my mother. And she's so interested in everything I do it makes me a bit selfish in my letters, I'm afraid…”

“She loves to hear from you, I do know that.”

“What a pity she isn't here.”

Kit sounded so bereft, Ivy found herself swallowing. “Yes…well, you can't have let her know you were coming. I'm sure she'd have stayed.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“And didn't you know she was going away? She didn't tell you?”

“Yes, she did. But you know this is very odd, I got the feeling that she might not be going, that it wasn't really definite. I thought she might still be here.”

“And now you've had a wasted journey.”

“No it's not, I've met you. I know where she lives. She's the only person who ever made sense of anything about my mother to me, they were great friends. And I can see why. Lena's such a letter writer, she makes it like a conversation.”

“Yes, I'm sure,” Ivy said.

“I don't suppose you could show me their flat. You know, I bet she wouldn't mind.”

“No love, I'd better not. People rent from me and they have absolute privacy. It wouldn't be right.”

“But you have all the keys hanging on the wall here.”

“Yes, but that's only for an emergency.”

“Am I not an emergency?”

“No darling. You're just someone she'll be heartbroken to miss, and she'll say…” Ivy's voice broke off. Behind Kit there was a hammering on the door.