The Rhyme of the Magpie (15 page)

“What have you done to your hand?” Beryl asked, lightly touching my little bruise, which had faded to a murky purple.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just a bump.” It reminded me of the letter—Beryl didn't know about it, did she? I couldn't face telling her now—whether because I had not one ounce of energy or I wanted to protect her, I didn't know.

We grew quiet again. The great silence in the kitchen took on its own persona, a body heavy and full of meaning. It seemed to press against me. It wasn't only the worry about Rupert—it was the great chasm between Beryl and me.

Afraid that she would broach the subject, I jumped in first. “Why don't we cook a meal?” I asked. “Something simple. Scrambled eggs?” It was close to seven o'clock, so really definitely time to eat—it wasn't entirely avoidance on my part.

She gave me a cool, knowing look. I squirmed.

“Yes, we'll have a meal. I'll get it started. You still have some clothes in your old bedroom—you go and change.”

It felt good to be ordered about. I climbed the stairs to my room, which looked as it always had. I pulled on old denims, a soft sweater that had a hole in one elbow, and trainers with a broken lace. I phoned Vesta, not knowing what I would say, not knowing what she knew.

Little, as it happened. “We'd a good tour of the Hall, and everyone enjoyed the lecture. The volunteers get along well—I believe this program of yours will be a hit, Julia.”

I could hear music in the background. It sounded like opera—a soprano but with a man's voice singing along.
How lovely,
I thought.
She's having an evening with Akash.
The scene I envisioned stung my eyes with tears.

“I'll see you tomorrow, Vesta. Thanks.” Plenty of time to tell her my tale. And by then, it may all be over.

My reprieve from a confrontation with Beryl didn't last long. We ate our eggs, doing a fair job of cleaning our plates, but when we stood to wash up and I began running hot water, Beryl said, “Julia, we need to talk.”

I plunged into my prepared statement. “Beryl, I'm sorry for the way I've acted,” I said in a rush. “It was wrong, really, and I know that now. Please forgive me.” I meant it—every word—and I hoped it would be enough. I knew the topic demanded an airing, but I didn't think I could take an emotional encounter this evening. I found that with Dad gone, every thought I had hurt, as if I'd burned myself and kept forgetting and knocking the burned spot into things.

“Of course I forgive you,” Beryl said gently. “But it's more than that—I want you to understand, not just be sorry for how you've acted.”

“I can't,” I mumbled, “understand.” But it came to me that perhaps I didn't want to.

Beryl stacked our plates at the side of the sink. “As much as you were heartbroken at losing your mum, as much as you grieved—still grieve—it was as bad or worse for your dad. And for me as well. Different—but no easier.”

“It was an odd way to show grief.” It got out before I could stop it.

Beryl's eyes bored a hole through me, but her voice wavered as she said, “Anne was my best friend from the day Rupert brought her back here from California. Well,” she said, “perhaps the day after.”

I knew the story and couldn't help filling in the details. “She said she couldn't understand what anyone said and hated the food. The weather was cold and wet, and she wanted to go home. Except for Dad—she knew she would never leave him.” And another piece of the story came back to me. “Dad almost didn't take that year at Stanford—he said he got cold feet at the last moment and decided not to go. But Fenny talked him back into it, didn't he?”

“He did that,” Beryl said softly.

“He told Dad he shouldn't pass up the opportunity to study in America for a year.” Beryl watched me with a far-off look in her eyes. “You and Fenny were together by then, weren't you?”

“Giles asked me out on our first date just after Rupert left for Stanford.”

She looked at me as if expecting another question, but it was a question that hovered just out of reach of my conscious thought, and I chose not to pursue it.

“Dad has always said he owes Fenny his life, because if Fenny hadn't bullied him into going, he would have never met Mum.”

Beryl picked up the old story. “I still remember seeing Anne for the first time—lovely tan and hair bleached by the sun. She was the California Girl just as we'd heard about. But you're right about the culture shock. She almost threw the first cup of tea I offered her across the room. But then we found each other—best friends married to best friends, that's what we became. Until Giles found other women who interested him more than his own wife—that broke up our foursome.”

Beryl said it lightly, but I sensed the tension in her voice—still, after all these years.

“We didn't understand,” I said. “We knew you were sad and Fenny left, but that's all.”

Beryl shook her head. “You and Bianca and Stephen shouldn't have needed to understand. But now, Julia—you must believe this, because it's true.” She took hold of my arm. “There was nothing but friendship between your father and me—until there was grief. I know firsthand what it's like to have a husband who betrays you. Having had it done to me, I would never do it to another woman.”

I couldn't escape her and had no will to try. “But it was so soon,” I said in a thick voice. “As if you didn't care.”

“Oh God, we cared—we cared too much, perhaps. I had the most enormous hole in my life without Anne. She was as good as any sister. Think, for one moment, what it would be like if you lost Bianca. That's how terrible it was for me.”

I grabbed my arm away. How could she say that about Bianca—how could she even think of something so devastating? And yet it made me, for one instant, see her despair.

“But Dad…,” I said, and couldn't go on.

“He was lost. We were both lost. And so we turned to each other as a sort of comfort. And then it changed, it grew into something else.”

Right, that's me away. I wouldn't listen—I couldn't hear another word of where this was going.

“I'm quite tired, Beryl, do you mind if I go to bed?”

“It isn't as if he's forgotten her,” Beryl continued as if I hadn't spoken. “And I don't fool myself, I know I could never replace Anne. No one could replace her—not as a best friend or as a wife. I understand that. So why should it bother me that Rupert still thinks of her first?”

The question was rhetorical. Just as well—I couldn't speak. Beryl forced out a small smile while her eyes shone with tears.

“She's everywhere in this house,” she continued, “and I accept that. Here in the kitchen, the sitting room, the bedroom.” Beryl looked away. “He still says her name, you know, even—”

“Please, stop!”
A saucer slipped out of my hand and broke in two against the frying pan in the sink.

Beryl wiped a tear off her cheek and continued in a relentless voice. “The thing is, Julia, I knew this—that all I'm doing is filling in for Anne. I've come to love Rupert, but I know it will never be enough for him. So perhaps you can take some comfort from that—Anne will always be first.”

No point in trying to reply now, as I shook with silent sobs. The anger and sorrow seemed to be coming out my very pores, released at last after months of confinement.

Beryl carefully took the broken piece of saucer out of my hand, set it down, and put her arms around me. They weren't my mother's arms, but Beryl had always stood ready to comfort Bianca or me when Mum wasn't available, and now I remembered that. I clung to her until I calmed down to sniffles and hiccups.

The rest of the evening passed as peacefully as possible under the circumstances. We anticipated the ring of the phone that never came. But the air had cleared, and I could breathe again. We returned to discussing Dad, going over everything once more—what Flint had said, what I suspected. But were those “tips” I'd given Flint actually worth anything? Gavin, Colin Happer, Woodcock—one second they seemed sinister figures capable of God knows what, and the next they were merely foolish, petty caricatures.

When Beryl went off to take a bath, I went in search of an extra blanket for my bed and ended up in our rarely used guest room. I sat on the bed and looked round at the bits and bobs covering the walls and tables—seaside prints, oddly shaped vases, and china figures from distant relatives. The corner of a large gold-leaf frame stuck out from behind the dresser, and when I couldn't identify it, I pulled it out to take a closer look.

Magpies. A picture full of black-and-white birds with long tails and patches of iridescent blue. It was a paper collage under glass, a visual counting rhyme beginning with one magpie in the upper left-hand corner and ending with a group of ten in the lower right. It stirred a memory of Mum's earth-mother phase when she had made woodblock prints for Christmas cards and had put up gallons of sloe gin—I daresay there were still a few forgotten jars in some cupboard.

“Anne was always good with her hands.” Beryl stood in the doorway in a long terry dressing gown, damp strands of hair clinging to her forehead.

“Did Bee and I use this for counting?” I asked, trying to piece together the wisps of memory that were floating through my mind.

Beryl smiled. “You were a bit old for a counting rhyme by the time Anne made that. It was for your dad, because of his research. The research he did with Giles. Look on the back.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and we turned the frame over, where a calligraphy label—another of Mum's talents—read: “The Intelligence of the Magpie: Self-Recognition and Cognition in a Corvid Species by Rupert Lanchester and Giles Fenwith.”

“They finished that up just before your dad left Cambridge—it was his last academic paper.” Beryl raised her eyebrows briefly. “It was Giles's last paper, too.”

I propped the frame up against the wall and studied it. Dad had said that magpies were more than a counting rhyme. Is this what he meant—his research with Fenny?

“I'm awfully glad you stayed, Julia,” Beryl said. “You don't mind if I go on to bed now, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“There'll be good news tomorrow—I know it.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Beryl may've turned in early, but I was wide awake. I cleaned my shoes as best I could—three-inch heels were not made for country walks. I washed out my blouse and tights and hung them in the kitchen to dry. I paused for a moment in the sitting room, taking in my familiar surroundings. I picked up a photo of Dad, Mum, Bianca, and me standing in front of Marshy End—I believe I was eight, Bee ten. We all looked so happy. I wondered what had happened to the doll I was holding.

I looked round the mantel and tables, thinking there must now be a snapshot of Beryl and Rupert on their wedding day, but nothing of the kind was displayed. The thought I had ignored the week before now registered in my conscious mind. The room, indeed the house—photos, furniture, pillows, and all—was as it had been when Mum was alive. There was no indication that Beryl had made the slightest impression on her surroundings.

It was what I had wanted, but now it made me sad—sad about Mum and sad for Beryl, too.

I opened the window in my room, laid out the extra blanket, and found a T-shirt to sleep in. At last, I crawled into bed, but found I couldn't reconcile my body with the lumps in the mattress and craters in the pillow. I felt like the princess and the pea, and sat up, turned on the light, and pulled Dad's notebook from my bag.

I hadn't given it to Flint—I hadn't seen the need, and after all, the police had taken Dad's hat and left me with nothing. A quick glance through the pages before the police had arrived at Rupert's campsite had told me it held no important information—as if Dad would've had time to write “Suited man in dark car has taken me to…” Where?

Now I unwrapped the elastic band and looked more carefully, in case a word or two would offer any clue. But no, the pages were full with the usual—his bird sightings, notes on the show, topics for talks, projects for children. Dad had probably seen every kind of bird in Britain ten times over, but he never lost the pleasure in jotting down a sighting and sketching a bird in flight, the angle of a wing or a well-made nest.

His peculiar shorthand was easy to read when you knew how he did it. Just letters that stood for bird and place. “CD @ LK”—collared dove at Lakenheath. That was easy, given the fat bird he'd drawn next to the note. “YH nr ME.” A yellowhammer, probably in the fields near Marshy End. Everything from the birds to my dad's handwriting comforted me. I yawned at last and thought I'd try sleep again, when my phone lit up and
ping
ed with a text.

“Any word?” It was from Michael.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“U all right?”

“Yeah. In Cmbrdg 2night.”

“Sure 2 b good news tomorrow. Sleep well.”

“U 2.” This would be our mantra, I suppose—good news tomorrow.

The lumps in the mattress melted away and I slept.

The world looked better in the morning—helped along by the streak of sunshine that pierced the clouds. There would be good news today—Rupert would be found safe; all would be well. I arose early, showered, ironed my blouse, got dressed, and made tea. I sent Vesta a text to say I'd be a wee bit late. Just before nine o'clock, I stood at my parents' bedroom door and knocked.

“Beryl?” I asked quietly.

“Yes, Julia, come in.”

Her bedcovers were in disarray. Dark circles under her eyes gave her face a hollow look.

“I've brought you a cup of tea,” I said, setting it on the nightstand.

She pushed her hair back and said, “I've been
thinking—should
you ring Bianca and tell her?”

I'd been wondering that, too. “I suppose I'd better in case she hears something. Will you be all right today? It's just that, I need to get to work.” What I needed was a structure for my day, so that I wouldn't live it staring at the phone waiting for a ransom call.

“Of course, I'll be fine,” she said, struggling to sit up. “I should've cooked you breakfast.”

I shook my head. “No need. Look, why don't you ring Stephen? Perhaps he could come out for the day?”

She shook her head. “No, I couldn't do that. Saturdays are so busy for him.”

Beryl's son owned a popular boutique hair salon in the up-and-coming Hoxton district of London. Saturdays, he was slammed.

“Well, I'll be back this evening.”

Beryl may not want to ask Stephen, but there was nothing stopping me. We had been friends all our lives, and that gave me the right to make certain demands. I sent a text—“Your mother needs you”—before I eased my car out of the drive and made my way into Cambridge's city center to visit Fenny in the Guildhall. I thought it likely he'd be at work—it was half term and anxious parents would want to fill their children's every waking moment with extra learning. I heard voices behind his closed door and waited until a teenage boy came tumbling out, book bag slung over his shoulder.

I stuck my head in. “Hello, Fenny,” I said. “Do you have a moment?”

Bent over work at his desk, his head shot up and his glasses slipped from his nose. “Julia, well, I've become quite popular suddenly, now haven't I?” He hurried to get to me for a hug. “Sit down, do. I'll switch the kettle on.”

Instead, I followed him back to his desk, where he took a stack of file folders and set them on top of yesterday's
Varsity,
one of the student newspapers.

“No, thanks, I just popped by to ask you…well, this'll sound crazy, I know, but—you and Dad did some research with magpies years ago. Do you remember?”

His eyes took on a distant look, as if he was rummaging round in his brain to locate that information. “Yes, of course we did. I do remember that. Magpies, sense of self.”

“Was there anything unusual about your research? The methods or the results? People's reactions when they read the paper?”

“Read the paper? No one read it—how could they, it was never published.” Fenny flipped opened his diary. “I'm sorry to rush you off, Julia, but I've another student and he's already late.”

“Why wasn't it published?” I asked over my shoulder as he walked me to the door.

“That was years ago,” he said. “And certainly out of my hands.” The last comment was under his breath, but even so I heard the sharp tone.

Fenny opened the door. He didn't lay a hand on me, but it was as if I could feel him pushing me out. I stopped and faced him, with a sudden urge to push back.

“It was your last academic paper, wasn't it? Beryl told me that. Was there some problem with it?”

“Problem?” he asked. “It was groundbreaking research—there was no problem. It would've made my career. Rupert didn't need it to make his career, though, did he?” He edged past me and glanced into the hall. “Look sharp, Watson, you're running two minutes late.”

The boy couldn't have been more than eleven, and looked every bit the beast of burden with a rucksack of books that hung to his knees. “I'm not late, sir, I'm early—did you forget my time?”

Fenny closed the door in my face. I stared at the flaking finish on the wood and the small, yellowed card that read: “Giles Fenwith, Tutor.” I didn't like it, not one bit. For years, I had carried an image of Dad and Fenny as best of friends through the ups and downs of their lives. But it seemed that happy picture was only a thin veneer that had now started to peel away.

Cambridge had become one large construction site in recent years, diverting foot traffic hither and yon. I followed the signs round the Corn Exchange, down a lane—picking up my own copy of
Varsity
from a newsstand on my way—and ended up somewhere off King's Parade. I stopped on a short street to get my bearings and found myself gazing at a stone edifice with two gargoyles flanking the wide door.

I frowned at its familiarity, trying to place where I'd seen it. As I tried to rub the pricking sensation away from my arms, it came to me—this was the building I saw through the window in the news conference video when Dad had called Kersey out. I pivoted on the spot. Across from the gargoyled doorway was a building with a modern front and an enormous window.

The news conference had been held inside there, behind that glass front. At the bottom of the window, gold lettering read: “HMS, Ltd.” Drawn forward, I put my hand against the glass to peer into the darkened interior. Whatever its business, it was closed on a Saturday. I saw old brick walls left exposed, an airy open space, and a sleek counter on the other side of the room with a hall leading off. No names, no labels, nothing to indicate just what went on inside. Why had Kersey held a Power to the People news conference here? I had no memory of Dad going to this event, but Michael had been there. He had told me so, but I had become distracted and forgot to pursue his remark.

Well past eleven o'clock when I hurried into the TIC—I hadn't meant to take so long, but I didn't think Vesta would mind. Perhaps she didn't, but Linus stood at the counter looking for all the world as if he'd like to be drumming his fingers on its surface. I felt both sets of eyes on me with barely a greeting between them.

“I'm awfully sorry to be late,” I said. “I spent the night in Cambridge with my…” Completely thrown off at the word that had almost come out of my mouth, I stopped and tried to regroup. “With Beryl. Just a visit, you know, but I'm afraid time got away from me this morning.”

A young couple with a child in a pushchair had followed me in, and I scurried behind the counter as Linus made room for them. He waited while I answered their question—what was the best route off the estate and on north to Thetford? As they left, the woman said, “It's a lovely village. Do you have any summer events? We'd come out and stay at the pub for a night or two, wouldn't we?”

“Yes,” I said, my brain lagging two seconds behind my mouth, “we have a summer supper planned with all local produce—a Suffolk farm-to-table evening—and a well-known chef overseeing it all. A line of tables down the high street that will seat two hundred at least, and lots of activities for little ones. And a beer tasting on the green. Please do come—we'll start booking soon.” I've no idea where the beer-tasting idea came from.

The couple agreed that it sounded like a lovely event and took a card and several leaflets about the estate before leaving me alone to face his Lordship.

Vesta retreated to make noises with the kettle. Linus didn't move.

He frowned. “Julia, I don't believe I've heard anything about this supper,” he said quietly, squaring his shoulders. “All events are to be approved, you do remember that? This sounds far too grand for us to undertake now—I don't know how we could ever host it. Why, the logistics alone boggle the mind.”

I swallowed hard. It did seem a little extreme, but now that I had said it aloud, I wouldn't back down.

“We could raise thousands of pounds for the pensioners' housing, Linus—I've read about these events, they're all the rage in America. I believe we can do it, and I already have details written up. It's just that—I'm sorry I didn't present it to you first. That wasn't right, I realize.”

Linus, straightening the hem of his jacket, looked everywhere but at me. I couldn't read his face; usually he was so kind and encouraging, but now, what was it? Anger that I hadn't followed protocol? Was he hurt I seemed to be excluding him?

“Julia, I feel that there's something else going on here, and I want to understand. I know that we all have our personal concerns. I don't want you to think I'm not aware of that. But I hope that you remember the estate cannot be run into the ground by hare-brained ideas. And I hope that this isn't an unconscious way of letting your feelings known about how I run the estate.”

That knocked the wind out of me. This was Oscar Woodcock's doing. He had insinuated himself into Linus's good graces and brainwashed him against me for his nefarious purposes. My face grew hot.

“I would never jeopardize my job or the estate for personal reasons,” I said with as much dignity as possible. “But, Linus, surely you can see that others may be manipulating you for devious purposes of their own.”

“Also, Julia,” Linus continued, his cheeks turning pink, “I thought you should know that the police came to the Hall this morning with a photo of your father, asking if I had seen him on the estate.”

I put my hand on the counter to steady myself. Why hadn't it occurred to me that a “door-to-door” would include the door of Hoggin Hall?

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you—there's been an incident, you see. The police are involved.”

“They told me nothing—has something happened to him? I thought. And what about you—were you all right? I don't need to know the details of the situation, Julia, but I'm hurt that you would not come to me if you needed help.”

The bell jingled, and I wavered between attending to business and explaining myself to Linus. But one visitor turned into another and soon a parade of people had entered with a barrage of tiny questions. Linus offered a reserved smile and said, “Why don't we talk later?” He wheeled his bicycle out the door before I could answer.

Vesta and I worked steadily until almost lunchtime, when I collapsed at our back table and she made tea.

I wrapped my hands around the mug and let its heat sink into my skin. Vesta sat across from me and waited.

“I don't know what they told Linus,” I said, “but the police believe—we believe—that someone has taken my dad and is holding him against his will.” The story spilled out, and as I told it I remembered I would soon need to tell it to my sister, too. But I was reluctant to upset Bianca now, when she was concentrating on her pregnancy and with three little ones swarming round her.
For once,
I thought,
let me be the big sister. I'll take care of things.

Vesta watched me for a moment, and then covered my hand with hers. “You think of your father, Julia. Rupert is a strong, compassionate man. I believe he can take care of himself—don't you? You'll hear something good soon, I'm sure of it.”

I smiled at her—there'll be good news tomorrow. But wasn't that today?

“Don't you want to be there in Cambridge—I don't mind taking the rest of the day.”

“No, thanks. I need to be here—and I told Beryl I'd be back this evening.”

Vesta rose from the table. “Why don't I fetch us sandwiches for lunch?”

“An excellent idea,” I said, reaching for my purse.

She waved me away and patted her pocket. “My treat.”

I followed her out to the pavement and watched as she walked down to the shop. I remained where I stood, soaking up the sun. I couldn't seem to get warm today—there was a cold core running straight through me.

“Who is that beautiful blonde with the new 'do?” said a voice across the road.