The Saint Zita Society (30 page)

J
une too was crying. It was only natural, she told herself between sobs, that she should weep for the Princess, her long-term employer but also her dearest friend. They had been inseparable, each other’s confidante, knowing each other’s business inside out. Gussie also cried or howled, searching the house for his dead mistress, although during his lifetime the Princess had scarcely been into any room but
the one where she slept and the one where she watched television. He searched and paced and howled and wasn’t much comforted by June’s hugging him and saying, ‘It’s just as bad for me, you know.’

But it wasn’t. June confessed to herself after a day of this that she was crying not for her loss but because Dr Jefferson had rebuked her. If the reproof had come from someone well known for rudeness and shortness of temper she would have thought little of it, but from a man famous for his mildness and easy-going kindness to all and sundry, that was scarcely to be borne. So she cried. Her only comfort came from the sympathy meted out to her by the neighbours who, calling to express their sympathy, recognised genuine grief in her swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

Y
ou had the funeral and then the people who had been to it all gathered in the drawing room and Mr Brookmeadow read the will. This belief of June’s was grounded in her sporadic reading of sensation literature. The first of February was the day of the funeral and she was planning ahead. The dining room should be allotted to the solicitor who would sit at the head of the table while those considered particularly interested took the seats along the sides. Rocksana Castelli, June thought, Zinnia St Charles. Did witnesses have to be there? She might invite Damian but would he come? Most unlikely. His own civil partnership now was to take place two days later and though this hardly precluded attendance at the funeral of a neighbour, she thought that, if challenged, he would plead pressure of personal business.

Dr Jefferson’s unprecedented outburst at her suggestion of homicide on the part of Rocksana, on the part of anyone in fact, had shocked her to the core. Had shocked her so much that she felt it in her bones, so that when she kept her appointment to have the plaster removed from her arm, she asked the doctor if the pain she felt all over her was the onset of arthritis.

‘At your age,’ he said not very pleasantly, ‘everyone has some arthritis.’

It was nice getting her arm back but not enough to make her forget Dr Jefferson’s behaviour. His explosion had frightened her, the way few demonstrations of anger could have. Her erstwhile belief she now saw as mistaken, a natural consequence of suffering bereavement. That was why she invited Rocksana to be present at the will-reading. If Rad’s girlfriend now inherited the Princess’s house and fortune she had decided she would not contest it.

Burns’s contention that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go wrong is usually taken to mean that the plans are good and their destruction bad but in June’s case the reverse was true. On the morning of the funeral she received a letter. It told her that under the will of HSH the Princess Susan Angelotti, known as Hapsburg, apart from minor bequests to Mrs Zinnia St Charles and Miss Matilda Still, her goddaughter, the residue of her estate, being the house known as number 6 Hexam Place SW1 and the sum of four million, six hundred and fifty-two thousand pounds, mainly in stock and bonds, was to pass to her, June Eileen Caldwell. There were some subdued congratulations and expressions of his pleasure in the sad circumstances and he was hers sincerely, John Brookmeadow.

June read it again. She wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. The will had been taken out of that drawer only to be remade with the inclusion of Zinnia’s name and that of the little minx Matilda Still, and someone else had witnessed it. For the first time in many years, certainly for the first time since her death, June felt affection amounting to love for the Princess that brought tears to her eyes. She was glad that, admittedly to impress the neighbours and not to look mean, she had ordered a huge bouquet of white lilies, white freesias, narcissi and gypsophila. The florist brought it as she was reading Mr Brookmeadow’s letter for the third time and it joined the
mountain of flowers piled up in the hall. June, who was still in her dressing gown, went up to her bedroom and dressed herself in the deepest black she had, selecting the Princess’s mink coat to wear over it. After all, it was hers now, along with everything else.

M
atilda received few letters. Rabia had become the personal postman at number 7 since Mr Still’s departure and it was she who brought Mr Brookmeadow’s letter upstairs. Matilda was eating Coco Pops in the nursery with Hero.

‘You can read it.’

‘ “Please, Rabia, will you read this letter?” ’ Rabia corrected her. ‘If you want me to read it that’s what you say.’

‘Oh, OK. Please, Rabia, will you read this letter?’

A lawyer was writing, telling Matilda that the Princess had left her five thousand pounds. If Rabia had ever heard the words ‘To him that hath shall be given’, she would now have thought them apt and true. But they came from the wrong holy book and she did her best to avoid resentful or envious thoughts.

‘I didn’t know she was my godmother,’ was all Matilda said for five minutes. Then, ‘I shall add it to my running away money. I’ve probably got enough now to start my packing.’

Rabia said nothing. She didn’t believe in the running away scheme and the chances that Matilda would be allowed to get her hands on so large a sum were remote in the extreme. Holding Thomas by the hand, she took the girls downstairs to wait for the school bus. It was rather less cold, another pale grey day. The bus came at the same time as Mr Still’s car. Hero called out, ‘Daddy, Daddy!’ and Rabia marvelled, not for the first time, as the little girl ran to him, that children love bad fathers as much as good ones, their need for a parent is so great.

Mr Still went up the steps to the front door, rather unwillingly holding Thomas’s hand, and once she had seen the girls on to the bus, Rabia followed them. Opening the front door, she asked him if he had had the letter she had eventually posted. His shrug and shake of the head told her that he hadn’t. It was lost, she supposed. She would have to write it again, resign again. Should she tell him about the Princess’s legacy? Perhaps.

‘The Princess has left Matilda some money.’

‘Really? I didn’t know she knew Matilda.’

‘She was her godmother,’ said Rabia, although she knew very little about what this meant. Up in the nursery, she showed Mr Still the solicitor’s letter.

‘Good heavens,’ he said, once more shaking his head. ‘I can’t attend to that now. I’ve some important documents to pick up.’ He cast a perfunctory glance at his little son. ‘Is that a bruise on his forehead?’

Rabia didn’t say it was where his sister Hero had hit him with a tooth mug. No need to make more trouble when she could deal with what already existed. Anyway, she would soon be gone. With Thomas on her knee she watched Mr Still from the window while he ran to the Audi, his arms full of papers. On the other side of the street, that gardener man called Dex, who sometimes came to the garden centre, was also watching him.

‘We’ll go for a nice walk,’ she said to Thomas. ‘We’ll go and see
my
daddy and say hello to Mr Iqbal. Shall we do that?’

Thomas yelled, ‘Yes, yes, do it now!’ and Rabia, smiling at him, put her finger to her lips.

T
he civil partnership ceremony passed off quietly and the small lunch party was a success. At least according to June it was. She watched Damian and Roland leave in an
ordinary black cab and come back in the afternoon in Lord Studley’s Beemer, driven by Henry. It was a historic occasion in more ways than one, being the last time Henry for the foreseeable future would ever drive someone else’s car. Huguette was giving him a Prius for a wedding present two days later. Opening the car door for his future mother-in-law, Henry took great pleasure in addressing her as ‘My Lady’, also for the last time. In future, he had decided, it would be ‘Mamma’, as copying Huguette and calling her ‘Mummy’ was a bit OTT.

Other changes were coming. Adding her legacy to the savings she already had, Zinnia had discovered she now had just enough to satisfy a lifelong ambition, go home to Antigua and open a bar on a fashionable beach. She had a flight booked on Saturday, much to the chagrin of half the residents of Hexam Place who would now be without a cleaner. Jimmy told Dr Jefferson ‘no worries’ (his new phrase) because he would do the cleaning at number 3. He might also become a replacement for Zinnia at number 6, number 7 and number 8. He could do it now he had moved in at number 3 and was, so to speak, on the spot. This was said in the hearing of Dr Jefferson who made no attempt to deny it but only smiled resignedly. Jimmy had forgotten all about the missing knife.

M
ontserrat agreed with Ciaran that she had become obsessed with Preston Still. Not obsessed in a sex kind of way, she assured him, she didn’t even like him any more, but desperate to know what had happened between him and the police. Had they told him about her letter? Had he guessed it was from her and had he told them so? What were they going to do to him, if anything? She seldom saw him. Occasionally the Audi drew up outside number 7 and he was
seen to run up the steps to the front door. He never spoke to her, never seemed to notice her, though he looked in her direction and the whites of his eyes showed and his face flushed.

Ciaran wanted her to come and live with him. His flatmate had left and he didn’t miss the rent money.

‘Or we could go off somewhere it’s not grey and damp.’

‘Spain,’ said Montserrat, Barcelona in mind. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Thinking about it involved plucking up the nerve to talk to Preston. That would mean going to Medway Manor Court and suppose he refused to let her in? It was the kind of thing that needed to be done on the spur of the moment. See him, go up to him, speak. But she never did see him. If he came to number 7 – she knew from Rabia that he did – it was early in the morning before she was up. How many mornings would she have to be up by seven thirty in order to speak to him?

She never saw Lucy either. Three women had replaced Zinnia. They were called Merrie Maids and they came every morning, so that took care of Lucy’s breakfasts. Montserrat spent a lot of time with Rabia. Her curiosity was aroused when the children’s nanny asked her, if she was going out that morning, would she post that letter to Lucy? Montserrat thought she might as well give it to her employer but she couldn’t very well say so or ask what the letter was about, and though she looked enquiring Rabia only smiled. Her au pair’s money, for which she now did nothing, continued to come into her bank account.

But on the evening of the day she was going to post the letter, with the letter actually in her hand, she was climbing the area steps on her way to meet Ciaran, when she met Preston Still stepping out of his car. This was as she had
predicted, the spur of the moment, and they were face to face.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Long time no see.’

In a chilly voice he said, ‘How have you been?’

‘Absolutely fine. What are the police going to do to you? If you don’t tell me I’ll go and ask them.’

If they hadn’t been out in the street and with that weird gardener guy watching their every move, she thought, he would have hit her.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Of
course
. How many times do I have to point out to you that it was an accident?’

‘Let me guess. They went to Gallowmill Hall and searched and didn’t find that roof-rack box because you’d taken it away, dumped it somewhere. Or burned it or chopped it up.’

‘I was able to explain everything satisfactorily. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I am in rather a hurry.’ He turned away and bounded up the steps to the front door. Montserrat walked down to the Dugong and sat on one of the seats outside. Preston Still was inside number 7 for no more than five minutes before returning down the steps and getting back into the car.

It was too cold to stay there any longer, cold and pointless. Montserrat went into the pub and bought herself a glass of red wine for a change. This might be the last time she would ever come in here. It was time for her to go, shake the dust of this place off her feet, to use a phrase much liked by her father. Lucy would have to find another au pair.

S
pring shows its first signs in the middle of February. It was still too early for those tulips and hyacinths Khalid Iqbal had planted for Thea and at number 7 but the snowdrops had come and gone and purple and yellow crocuses were coming out. Those front gardens where a flowering tree
or shrub grew in their centre beds had an almond in bud if not yet in flower and a yellow mahonia with sprays of blossom among its prickly leaves. Dex noted all these pretty things with pleasure, a relief from that ugly thing he often observed, the evil spirit. He was preparing to dispose of it when he could. The difficulty was that it was never alone for more than a minute or two and it never walked anywhere.

Dex was in no doubt at all that it was an evil spirit, though he had come to that conclusion on his own. Peach was silent. He left messages, kind and caring, but he never spoke. Destroying the evil spirit might take a long time, Dex understood that. He would watch and wait.

G
ussie had howled for the Princess for three days, refusing to go out for walks, though June had tried to take him. Then, quite suddenly, his mourning had ceased, he had begun to eat again and had bitten June when she tried to put his coat on. With Thea dead and gone, Henry a married man living in a pretty little house in Chelsea rented for him and Huguette by his father-in-law, Zinnia describing in emails from Antigua the restaurant she had started and herself no longer a servant, June disbanded the Saint Zita Society. It had been good while it lasted, approximately seven months, though she had noticed that while she had always been enthusiastic, the others had mostly not pulled their weight. Now she must be free to concentrate on her project, that of redecorating the whole of number 6 from top to bottom and putting in a new central heating system. Why not, when she had a house of her own at last? Neighbours suggested she should sell it and buy herself a nice little flat with a second bedroom for when a friend came to stay. June shuddered. She had no friend.
The nearest to come into that category was Rocksana Castelli and June understood she must be got rid of promptly. It would mean breaking the lease but she had never lacked courage.