Whitethorn Woods (15 page)

   And life went on in the funny way it does, everything changed and yet finding a similarity in the days. We continued to play bridge two nights a week. Becca's father, bloody Eamon, would telephone me every time there was something new in the tabloids— his frightful wife apparently reads nothing else.

   "How do they know these things?" he would cry at me into the phone.

   I shrugged. I had no idea, I told him. I never saw him so he wouldn't know that I had such smart clothes and that I had bought a sports car. Or that there was a cleaner every day now and a gardener once a week. It was none of his business anyway. Little he had cared when he abandoned his wife and daughter.

   I would take a taxi to the prison each week, and ask it to wait at the bus stop around the corner and then join the rest of the prison visitors, opening my bag for examination and accepting a body search before visiting my own daughter. I didn't want anyone to tell Becca that I kept a taxi waiting. She would wonder where I got the funds. And in the end it was all for her own good, her peace of mind, and enabled me to visit her every week without too much stress and strain.

   "Kate is very good to me, Mother," she said one day.

   "Yes indeed." I was wondering where this was leading.

   "I was wondering if you could ask her for tea sometime on her day off, Mother?"

   "No, darling, that wouldn't do at all," I said.

   "Please, Mother."

   Becca had lost touch with the real world. How could I ask such

a sad, poor woman, who lived in a council flat and worked as a prison warder, to my house?

   "Sorry, Becca, out of the question," I said briskly.

   Becca was very disappointed. I could see by her face. But the whole thing was totally impossible. She said no more, just resumed her stitching at a feverish pace. I wondered as I got back into my taxi why I had bothered to come and see her at all. She was really so ungrateful for all I had done. Wasn't it enough that I had bought all these little gifts for Kate? Not a word of thank you from Becca. Maybe the woman had never told her.

   It was so hard to know! I mean, Kate was just a prison warder. Imagine Becca thinking I could entertain her at home. I couldn't possibly let her see how we lived.

   As the taxi pulled away, I thought I saw Kate standing there looking at me thoughtfully but it must have been my imagination. If she had seen me she would have come over and talked, not just stood there watching as she was. I hoped that she wouldn't say anything to Becca about my taking a taxi. But then I shook myself and told myself not to be fanciful. Being in that awful prison would make anyone fanciful, really.

   When I got home the chaps were waiting for me with a scotch and ginger. Such dear boys. They always asked about Becca and I always said that it's too dreadful to talk about and that I must go and have a long bath. Just the very fact of
being
in that place makes you feel defiled. I lay in the warm scented bubbles and drank my long cool scotch and ginger. Life was a great deal better these days than it used to be. Amazing, really, how having enough money can take the edge off things.

   I never worried these days about the roof slates, or getting a new handbag to tone in with a new outfit, or having good wine when we went out to dinner. I was beginning to accept as my right that I had a silk dressing gown and a redecorated bedroom. Tonight I would wear the really smart dress that had cost what we spent on our first car. It looked nice, certainly, but I needed better shoes. Perhaps I could come up with another little story for the ghastly papers. Something like "Stitching Her Way to the Future" and a description of the counterpane Becca was making. Yes, that would be good, it would throw suspicion on some of the people in the prison. That boot-faced Kate, for example.

   I looked at myself in the mirror.

   Not bad at all for my age. New shoes would make it perfect.

   Franklin stood at the bottom of the stairs. Wilfred had gone ahead to be at the table to greet us. A special dinner out in a new restaurant. My treat. Always my treat. But then don't be all bitter and twisted, Gabrielle, I told myself. The boys' business is still in the foothills, it hasn't risen to great heights yet. They actually don't have any real money yet, poor darlings.

   "You look lovely," Franklin said. It really was a pleasure to get dressed for people who appreciated it. Bloody Eamon wouldn't notice what I was wearing.

   "Thank you," I purred at him.

   "Does she not ask about me at all?" he said unexpectedly.

   "No, well, you know, we all agreed that it was better for her not to get in touch until . . . you know . . . until she comes out."

   "But, Gabrielle . . ." He looked at me, astonished. "She's not going to get out for years and years."

   "I know," I said. "But you'd be amazed at how strong she is. You and I would go under in a place like that, but not Becca, she's brave as a lion."

   He looked at me affectionately.

   "You make all this so much easier for me," he said, his eyes full of gratitude.

   "Come on, Franklin, let's not be late," I said, and we walked down the steps of our home, past the new wrought-iron railings with the sweet peas and honeysuckle entwined. Just before we got into the car I thought I saw that Kate in our road.

   But it must have been a hallucination.

What could she have been doing in our neighborhood?

   And then next day I thought I saw her there again. It couldn't have been, of course. But it made me uneasy for some reason and I decided to get her a little present and have a chat with her on my next visit. Possibly foolish Becca had already invited her to tea in my house. And now she was annoyed because the invitation had not been followed up.

   Ridiculous, but who knows what kind of thoughts people like her have?

   I brought Becca some roses from the garden, and some sweet peas for that Kate. Also a silly little lace-trimmed handkerchief with a letter
K
on it. She accepted the flowers and handkerchief silently with a nod of her head and left almost immediately without any little chat.

   "Is everything all right, Kate?"

   "Never better, thank you," she said, reaching to the back of the door of her office for her overcoat and leaving immediately. It was very mystifying.

   Becca looked just as usual but there was something watchful, wary about her. It was as if she were examining me.

   "We are always talking about me," she said. "And really nothing much changes here. Tell me all about your days and nights, Mother," she said.

   I was a bit wrong-footed here. I hadn't expected this. Up to now I had been vague and she had never wanted to know.

   "Oh, you know me, Becca darling, drifting from this to that, a little bridge here, a little reminding your bloody father to give me some support there. The days pass." She reached for my hand and lifted it to admire my nails.

   "Some of them must pass at the beauty parlor," she said.

   "Oh, I wish, darling, just cheap enamel I put on myself."

   "I see. Like your hairdo. Do it yourself with the kitchen scissors, do you?"

   I was very annoyed. These were things I couldn't hide from her, the expensive styling and shaping of my hair every five weeks with Fabian. The weekly manicure at Pompadours.

   "What are you saying?" I asked.

   "Not very much, Mother. You learn not to say anything here until you're quite sure what it is you are trying to say."

   "That would make the world a very silent place," I twittered at her.

   "Not really, no, just a more certain place."

   I tried to change the subject. "Kate seemed in a hurry today, she almost brushed past me."

   "It's her half-day," Becca said.

   "Yes and I know that you did want me to invite her to afternoon tea, darling, but you're a little out of touch, Becca. It would be so inappropriate. I hope you don't mind."

   "No, that's all right, I understood, and so did she."

   "Well, that's good," I said doubtfully.

   "Do you get lonely at all, Mother? What with Father having left you and my being in here and everything?"

   I couldn't imagine why she was asking this question. "Well,
lonely
isn't the right word. I don't ever think about that bastard Eamon these days. I miss you, darling, and wish you were at home. And you will be. One day."

   "Not for years and years, Mother." She was matter-of-fact.

   "I'll be there for you," I said firmly.

   "I doubt it very much, Mother, I really do."

   She still looked totally calm but this wasn't the way she normally spoke. A little silence fell between us. Then after what seemed a long, long time, Becca spoke.

   "Why did you do it, Mother?" she asked.

   "I don't know what you're talking about," I began. And I didn't really—there were so many things it could have been. Was it the taxi? Had that really been Kate in the road who would have told her about the house being all painted up? That there were defi nitely signs of money, ill-gotten money, around the place? Or had she told her anything else?

   I stood up as if to leave but her hand shot out and pinned my wrist to the table between us. One of the warders moved towards us but Becca smiled and reassured her that everything was fine.

   "My mother is just about to tell me something, she's finding it a bit difficult, but she will find the words."

   I rubbed my wrist. "Well, you see . . ." I began.

   "No, I don't see, Mother. I hear that you are living with Franklin. That's what I hear."

   I began to bluster a little.

   "But I'm doing it for you, Becca darling. Wilfred and Franklin had to live somewhere, I live in a big falling-down house—why shouldn't they have rooms there?"

   "Not so falling-down now, I hear," Becca said.

   "But, darling, they just have rooms there—don't be so silly."

   "Do you sleep with Franklin?" she asked calmly.

   "Now how can you say that?" I began.

   "Because Kate told me, and Gwen told me."

   "Gwen?"

   "One of the warders here, you go to her every week for a manicure. Dressed very differently than you are dressed today . . ."

   For once I was speechless. Becca wasn't speechless, however.

   "It's disgusting, he's thirty years younger than you."

   "Twenty-four," I said with spirit.

   "He'll move on," she said.

   "Maybe," I agreed. "One day, yes, maybe."

   "Sooner than you think," my daughter said.

   And Becca told me her plan. She reminded me that I had said everyone should have a plan. Becca's plan was to put Kate in touch with the tabloid papers. Kate and Gwen didn't think that it was fair the way Becca had been treated and had alerted tabloid photographers to lie in wait for Franklin and myself.

   "Murderess Betrayed by Her Own Mother" was going to be a much, much better story than anything that I had sold them so far. They would really pay Kate well for this.

   She looked very calm and in control as she spoke to me. I wondered suddenly whether, if I had put aside all my principles and invited the damn woman to afternoon tea, all this would never have happened. But we'll never know . . .

You see, I was always such fun and so much the center of things in the office, I obviously assumed that I was part of the long weekend party. It never occurred to me that they would all go off without me. Not without me, Barbara, life and soul of the party. I mean, I was the one who had told them about it in the first place, this hotel in a place called Rossmore, miles away in the country, where they had a big swimming pool with a patio where they let you grill your own steaks or pieces of chicken. I found the Web site and I printed out all the information and showed it to them.

   So naturally I thought I was part of it all.

   Then I heard them all talking about it and who they were going to be sharing rooms with and what time they were all getting together to have a drink before they set off to catch the train. And there was some kind of wishing well in the woods, where a saint had kept appearing, and they were going to investigate it and see could they catch her in mid-apparition.

   And then suddenly it dawned on me that I wasn't part of it.

   At the start, I thought it was a mistake, you know the way things are. Everyone thinks that someone else told me. They just couldn't be going without me. But you get a sort of gut feeling when you are being left out of things, and this is what I had.

   Well, at first I was totally furious. How dare they take my idea and not include me? Then I became upset. Why did they not like me? What reason could have made them leave me out? Tears of self-pity had to be beaten back. Then I started hating them all. Peo ple I had thought were my friends. Laughing behind my back. I hoped they would have a really awful weekend, and that the hotel would be a disaster. I wished them downpours of rain, and wanted the patio to be crawling with awful beasts that would get into their clothes and hair.

   They were leaving on Friday at lunchtime, catching a two o'clock train. They all brought their bags to the office that morning. What was really amazing was how they talked about it so openly in front of me. They weren't even embarrassed that they had stolen my holiday and then left me out of it. They didn't lower their voices or turn away, just discussed it as if I had assumed I would be no part of it.

   On the Friday morning Rosie, who was one of the nicer ones, confided to me that she had great hopes of getting together with Martin from Sales during the weekend.

   "Do you think I might stand a chance with him, Bar?" she asked.