Wish Her Safe at Home (20 page)

I made an appointment to see Mark Wymark. “This
is
nice,” he said, as he walked into the waiting room. “Come to invite me to that cup of coffee?”

“Yes. But first there’s something slightly less important. I’ve come to make my will.”

We went through to his office. “Then you haven’t already got one?”

I shook my head.

“In that case very wise,” he remarked, “even though it won’t be needed for another fifty years.”

“You have a crystal ball?”

“The best in the business.”

It was a happy occasion. No, of course it would have been that, anyway—I mean, it was a lighthearted one. “In the past,” I said, “I’ve never had anyone to whom I wished to leave my millions!” At one time, it was true, I’d vaguely thought about Sylvia, although there wasn’t any reason at all why Sylvia should outlive me—
I
’d never been a smoker! “It wouldn’t have worried me too much whatever happened. A charity—a dogs’ home—even the government.” I shrugged.

“That’s what I—”

“That’s what you what?”

“That’s what I call sad. It sounds really sad.”

“Does it? I suppose it does. But that was in the past; and now it’s like my past was lived out by a total stranger. Does that seem odd?”

“Not in the least. It only means you’ve changed.”

“Yes! I’ve come into my own. It’s the reverse of sad.”

“Now,
that
sounds absolutely splendid! Although I’m not sure what it means.”

“Nor am I.” We both laughed.

“And whom are you going to leave it all to now?” As he spoke he was looking out the appropriate documents. “Apart from me, obviously?”

“Well, in fact you may have to forget about all those millions I’ve just mentioned. I’m afraid there mightn’t be
any
money to leave. Not unless I hit the jackpot. There may be just the house and its contents. And if we’re really going to have to wait another fifty years...
then even you may have trouble making it up to the top floor!”

That was a rather pretty compliment, I thought, but he hardly seemed to notice. “No money?” he repeated.

“Not a bean!” I replied happily. “Not at the rate at which I’m currently spending it!”

He also smiled, though
his
smile seemed less spontaneous than mine. “Still more improvements to the house?”

“Oh, you materialist,” I chided. “Man cannot live on bread alone! Nor on bricks and mortar.” I wagged my finger. “Mr. Wymark, you must try to raise your mind above such very worldly considerations. Lord Jesus will provide!”

“That’s kind of him,” he said. But on this occasion he somehow failed to hit the right note. His eyes weren’t in accordance with his comment.

Or perhaps I was mistaken? He now acknowledged the compliment I had paid him.

“In any case,” he said, “difficulty with the stairs...
what a feeble excuse for ruling
me
out! Who do you know, then, who
won’t
be having difficulty with the stairs in fifty years’ time, who’ll still be bounding up them with a roistering cry?”

I hesitated for about ten seconds, wanting to prolong this most truly fulfilling moment.

“Shall I tell you whom?”

“Please.”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“Then...
very well! My godson Thomas.”

But I think he
had
guessed. He showed not the slightest hint of surprise.

However, he leaned back in his chair and regarded me approvingly.

“That’s a nice thing to do, Rachel.”

“Nice? I’d say it’s natural.”

He shook his head and smiled at me with all the charm he’d practised at the party. “Do you know what they’re going to write on your tombstone, Miss Waring? In some fifty years’ time?”

“Just so long as it isn’t ‘Good!’”

On the other hand, I reflected, I wouldn’t mind that—provided they put no exclamation mark.

“No, far from it,” he said. “Something like: ‘She was a true lady.’”

“I’d rather they wrote: ‘She was resilient. And she looked about her.’”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll make a note.” And he pretended to do so.

How pleasant it was to be sitting here by his window, with the sunshine pouring through, and to be putting the world to rights like this; to be discussing eternal verities. I didn’t yet take it for granted—my feeling so thoroughly at home in every new set of circumstances. I didn’t wish to, either.

“Do the Allsops know of your intentions?”

“Not yet. I’m planning a sort of Mad Hatter’s tea party. I may announce my intentions at that.”

“Mm. Sounds fun.”

“Not sad any longer?”

“Definitely not sad.”

“Perhaps you’d like to join us?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well—we’ll see. I may have second thoughts. It may have to be another time.” I laughed at his mock disappointment. “Did you know there’s an old superstition that crocodiles weep while luring and devouring their prey?”

“And I believe it to this very day!” he told me solemnly. “Spiders as well.”

This
was
a jolly conversation. But suddenly he glanced at his watch—a little ostentatiously, I thought. (Perhaps he was proud of his wrists. He did have fairly nice wrists as it happened. Clean-cut.)

“Now then,” he said, “reluctant though I am to be so dull...
Back to business, Miss Smith!”

“We were talking of my party.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“My big surprise party! Or do you think it would be better
not
to break it to them? It’s such a very lovely house, isn’t it? Perhaps even the
nicest
people might start to get a bit impatient. Start ticking off the days...
”

“What!” he exclaimed. “Roger and Celia?”

“No, you’re right, of course. Oh dear.” I gave a little chirrup. “Please don’t tell them that I said it!”

And I did break the news to them. Naturally. When you’ve got a wonderful gift to make—indeed the best, materially, that lies within your power—and to someone whom you more than like...
When you stay awake at night anticipating his pleasure and thinking how deeply, how
permanently
, it’s going to affect his whole attitude towards you, his whole already warm attitude...
When you’ve always so much wanted to be a part of almost any loving family but never thought to find one
quite
so magical as this...
When, finally, following a lifetime of generally forced and fruitless communication, you now feel drawn towards a way of holding nothing back...
Well, then it’s well-nigh irresistible, the mounting urge there is to tell.

Maybe I could have resisted it. I could have gone on hugging myself with the knowledge of the joy they’d get when I was dead.

“If only we had known!”

“Life’s going to be so bare without her!”

“Oh, when you think of all the time we had her with us and of all the opportunities we wasted...
!”

“Where has the enchantment gone...
?”

Oh, yes, I thought. Some firm assurance that I’d be present at my own funeral, perhaps as a gaily-coloured butterfly fluttering prettily around the graveside—maybe
that
would have been enough not only to encourage me to keep quiet for the time being but even to make me consider...
!

No, that was just a pleasantry. (I do believe in pleasantries.) What, an early death—when nowadays there was so very much to live for!

But on the other hand how
agonizing
if you were truly able to hear the nice things people said about you at your funeral. To hear them while being well aware they weren’t justified and knowing that if you could only have heard them in advance you’d have done your utmost to make sure they were. One of the first real intimations of hell?

Anyway, thinking about it, if I were honestly going to participate in my own funeral I’d have no wish to be dependent on just the impact of surprise legacies.

(Besides, I wondered if the will would even have been read by then. And the bond of silence between solicitor and client was surely as binding as that between doctor and patient, priest and penitent, and few of us would want to go round canvassing on doorsteps: “Oh yes, just take it from
me
! I can’t exactly be specific about this and I most certainly wouldn’t want to start blowing my own trumpet but all the same...
!”)

Oh no! How soul-destroying!

So I told them.

Roger and Celia.

Of course I did.

I’d invited them to dinner, not merely tea. It was to be a very special evening. And Thomas was to be there, safely asleep in his carrycot, not left at home with some stupid or indifferent babysitter. (And I’m certainly not alluding here to Mrs. Tiverton, who wasn’t—no, not by any means—indifferent!) It wouldn’t have seemed right for
him
to be excluded.

Next in line to the throne? Or at any rate to the succession? I felt unhappy even about excluding Mark Wymark but to exclude
Thomas
...

I bought caviar and duck and we had
sauce à l’orange
and green salad and homemade meringues and ice cream. I bought two bottles of wine and a magnum of champagne. (I already had some sherry in the house and an ancient bottle of liqueur.) Yes, I
had
been cocking a snook at Mr. Fitzroy: telling him, in my own small way, that heaven would provide—would provide abundantly. And that very afternoon, in fact, I had written him a note on more or less this subject.

Dear Mr. Fitzroy,
Thank you for all your recent letters and for your obvious eagerness to stay in touch. Appreciated! But please don’t worry about my overdraft; that really isn’t important and if you’re in the mood you can always send me a postcard when you go on holiday. But I don’t feel easy about your frittering away the bank’s resources: stationery and postage stamps aren’t free, you know! Besides—unless Horatio reads me the riot act or I’m feeling a soupçon skittish—I always toss away your envelopes unopened.

But you mustn’t repine, dear sir. I remain your obedient servant and I promise you I won’t forget.

And, indeed, hoping this will find you—as it leaves me—in the pink.
Yours sincerely,

R. Waring

Self-evidently I had known that my farewell wish was a smidgen over the top but somehow I hadn’t been able to resist it. I had always wanted to write to my bank manager—
all
of my bank managers—in just such an appropriate vein. But as a refinement I had lightly crossed out “pink” and substituted “red”—although I hadn’t really meant that: I bore the poor fellow no malice and felt sure he would appreciate the joke.

But what I
did
mean, of course, was my carefully considered postscript. I hoped he would work hard at that, God willing, and be encouraged to shake his sieve—yes, like the real forty-niner I felt sure he was at heart—to extract its precious nugget of pure gold.

“Oh, you beautiful doll, you great big beautiful doll
...”

I had only set my initials to that, however, and afterwards fretted he might simply dismiss it without paying it due attention. I might have to telephone him.

Let me put my arms around you
.
I’m so very glad I found you
...

Anyway.
Anyway
! Returning to the dinner table...

I had decided I would hold back my announcement until we were eating our dessert. Roger had opened the champagne—and how we’d all laughed while we were hunting for the cork. “Finders keepers!” we had cried, competitively.

“Losers weepers!” I had thought—unavoidably—but it didn’t seem quite suitable to mention that.

It was Roger of course who found the cork.

We had all sat down again. “I shall take this home and treasure it!” he said. “Darling, shall we put it in the place of honour on the mantelpiece—on a little stand with an inscription?”

Celia laughed. “I think we ought to give it to Rachel. She wanted it too.”

“She doesn’t need it as a memory of her own loveliness.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” I raised my hands. “I don’t think
you
had better have champagne!”

I could feel my cheeks burning.

“Nor as a memory of a meal which—I honestly believe—has been the most sumptuous I have ever eaten,” he continued unashamedly.

“It
is
only the wine, Celia. He really doesn’t mean it.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she answered with a smile. “Cooking was never one of my major strengths. You’ll see what I mean when you finally come to visit. I don’t enjoy it very much.”

But Roger ignored the pair of us. “My one regret,” he said, “is that we’re not all wearing evening dress.”

Possibly that was my own one regret. I’d been tempted—oh, how I’d been tempted!—while I was out spending all that money, while I was still in the mood for one last extravagant fling; one last
ridiculously
extravagant fling...

Perversely Roger wasn’t even in a suit and tie. He was wearing jeans with an open-neck shirt and sweater. “You see, I’ve taken you at your word,” he had said when they’d arrived. “Tonight I’m at my most relaxed.”

And I’d replied: “You feel you don’t have to impress me any more?”

“
Exactly
!”

Now he said, “But if only we had known...
!” (Ha!)

Well, at least Celia wasn’t wearing jeans and—like myself—looked a lot more
comme il faut
. “I must say, Rachel, you always do everything so beautifully. I take my hat off to you!”

“Is it a pretty one? Be careful if it is. I shall probably want to keep it.”

“And I
do
like this very sweet custom of yours of the extra place-setting. The unexpected guest. It’s almost biblical.”

“Well, now...
,” I began.

“It’s certainly hospitable.”

I raised my glass. “In fact,” I said, “I’d like to propose a toast. The forerunner of many! Let us first drink to the unexpected guest.”

“To the unexpected guest!” We all drank solemnly. To myself of course he was neither unexpected nor a guest; but obviously one never wants to
spring
things on people! One always aims to be subtle.

“In any case,” said Roger as though the question were still under discussion, “I mean to keep this cork.” I think he
was
a trifle tipsy.

“But I insist on having it,” I said. “I’ll tell you why. I’ve got a better memento for you to keep—not merely better, a lot bigger!”

I smiled at their air of mystification. “I only wish that Thomas was awake.”

“Then wake him!” exclaimed Roger and before either Celia or I could do more than halfheartedly protest he was beside the carrycot and had scooped up the baby—was already lifting him towards the ceiling! It was nearly as if he had some idea of what was to come.

“Oh, Roger!” cried Celia. “He’s not even properly awake. Only imagine! If it were you!”

“Yes, my friend.” I shook my finger at him sternly. “It could be a lesson you would profit from: we should make you walk a mile in another man’s bootees!”

And quite certainly, sitting next moment on his father’s lap, Thomas did look a little dazed. Dazed but—yes, we had to admit it—distinctly interested. Roger dipped his finger in champagne and put the tip of it into his firstborn’s mouth.

“Like father like son,” sighed Celia.

“Come on, Rachel,” he said. “We’re all agog. What can it possibly be?”

“Don’t be so impatient,” I said. “Actually it isn’t even for
you
. It’s for Tom.”

“What is?”

“This house.”

Well, now. You can imagine the hoo-ha: all the hugging and the kissing and the carrying on. The further pouring of champagne. The tears. The talk of fairy godmothers.

It was all so lovely. So exceedingly lovely.

“I don’t know what to say,” declared Roger, at last. “There doesn’t seem a
thing
one can say.”

I smiled at Celia. “For someone who couldn’t think of anything to say he doesn’t appear to have done too badly. But set my mind at rest. You don’t think he might be mildly disappointed the gift was for Thomas, not for him?”

Yet Roger answered for himself. “Rachel,” he said, his hand upon mine, “life is full of disappointments. One has to be brave.”

“Though that’s more easily said than done,” I replied, in the same light tone. “So much depends upon your constitution and the way you’ve slept the night before.”

“Agreed.”

“But in any case there’s a little something else I might have up my sleeve.”

“Something else?” They said it in unison. If you hadn’t known them it might have sounded...
well, let’s simply call it eager.

(And I’d never wish to be judged on some of the impressions I realize I myself may give on occasion. Well, I ask you! Who would?)

“Nothing but a proposition,” I said. “I hesitate to call it a consolation prize.”

“My goodness! What?”

“Something I want the pair of you to think about both long and hard.”

I again looked quite severely at Roger. He was the one more likely to be impulsive. “Yes,” I repeated. “Both long and hard!
Very
long and
very
hard!”

“Go on,” said Celia quickly. “It isn’t kind of you to keep us in suspense.”

“Well, first, if it doesn’t seem bad-mannered of me...
?”

“Rachel, be as bad-mannered as you like!” suggested Roger.

“May I enquire, then, what rent you have to pay for your small flat?”

“A hundred and twelve pounds a month,” answered Celia, after a pause. “But why?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve been considering. This house is rather large for just one person. And when I think of you two having to pay good money for a flat you don’t even like—and, Lord knows, hard-earned money you can ill afford—well, it seemed to me I simply had to mention it, that’s all.”

“Mention what, Rachel?”

“Why, the notion of your moving in with me! Hadn’t I made that clear?”

Paradoxically they seemed more surprised about this than about my previous revelation. There was a silence lasting several seconds. “Phew!” said Roger.

“But you mustn’t suppose I’m being purely altruistic. It would be very nice for me as well.”

I smiled and started to push back my chair. Roger jumped up immediately.

“Yet, as I say, I don’t want either of you to utter a single word before you’ve had a chance to sleep on it. For instance! Celia mightn’t at all like the idea of having to share the house with another woman. Someone, I mean, who isn’t precisely old and ugly. Well, I shall leave you to argue that one out between yourselves. Consider every angle. But for the moment—thank you, Roger dear, how lovely it is to receive these small attentions—if you’d like to go up into the sitting room I shall shortly join you there with coffee and Grand Marnier.”