An Accidental Shroud Read online

  With another sigh, Jake turned from the window and took his tie off, loosened his collar. It was like an oven in the office. The air was heavy and thundery. Surely this long, hot summer must come to an end sometime.

  3

  It was just after four and Christine, in a carefully chosen white linen trouser suit with a lot of gold costume jewellery, sat at the wheel of her open-topped Lancia outside the station, waiting for Lindsay.

  She was last out of the station, after all the others had gone, shoppers clutching classy green Harrods' bags arriving at the same time as commuters since it was Friday, the day they all left London early to extend the weekend. Lindsay, a music student, had her lute case over one shoulder, her bag on the other. She was carrying a heavy holdall but she appeared as unruffled and cool as ever. She stood hesitating at the entrance, as if unwilling to leave its shelter.

  Small and composed, uncreased after a hot and crowded train journey, her straight brown hair drawn back from her face, she was as unlike Christine as it was possible to be. Always neat and tidy, like a little girl dressed for a party, today she was wearing a cream silk shirt and a neat, coffee-coloured linen skirt, her only jewellery a pair of small pearl earrings. She frequently made Christine feel too highly-coloured and three sizes too big. Was it fancy that she looked paler than ever, or was it the heat, always so much more trying in the later summer than it was earlier, which gave her that look of fragile translucency? Oh God, Christine thought, with intuitive perception, she's still not better. They hadn't seen the last of the glandular fever that had plagued Lindsay on and off for the last five or six months, depressing and debilitating her. Her holiday in Italy didn't appear to have done her much good.

  'Lovely, lovely to see you, darling!'

  'Hello, Mother.' Lindsay held up her face to be kissed and they hugged, smiling. Their only point of resemblance, the wide, dazzling smile, was always a surprising and delightful thing to see on Lindsay's small, habitually grave face, but especially now. Until recently, she and Christine had always been close and had had a loving relationship, despite their differences in temperament; they had, after all, been alone together for sixteen years. But Lindsay, for some inexplicable reason, had closed in on herself during her illness, leaving Christine feeling shut out and unhappy.

  She'd always tried to be a conscientious mother, even when she'd had to work to support herself and Lindsay; apart from such considerations as natural affection, Christine couldn't bear not to be efficient at everything, including personal relationships. For the umpteenth time, she wondered where she'd gone wrong with Lindsay as she tied a scarf over her brilliant hair and from the glove compartment handed her daughter one, which Lindsay left on her lap.

  The big open car slid along smoothly and very fast, guided by Christine's well-shaped, capable hands on the wheel, moving through imperceptible gear changes and well-anticipated corners, so that Lindsay wasn't thrown around as, for instance, when Matthew drove. After she'd answered the usual detailed questionnaire from Christine: questions ranging from how was Italy, was she eating properly – and receiving truthful answers, for Lindsay never lied directly, only by omission – Lindsay asked politely, to change the subject, 'How's Jake?'

  'Busy, what else? Cooking up schemes. You know Jake.' Christine negotiated a tricky intersection where the main road crossed the country lane they were travelling along. 'He has something on his mind.'

  'What sort of thing?'

  'Wish I knew! Business, I expect, it's not doing as well as he'd like.'

  'The recession –'

  'What are we all going to blame our troubles on when the recession's over?' Christine laughed lightly, grew silent for a while, then resumed her chatter, bringing Lindsay up to date with the latest news, while the hedges rushed dizzily past in the wind generated by the car's passing.

  Lindsay, feeling washed out and colourless beside her mother, who always looked so stunning, wished she wouldn't talk so much, wouldn't drive so fast. Not that Christine took risks. It was just that she would have liked the opportunity to be able to drink in the quiet countryside, today looking amazingly green after thirsty, dusty brown London, although the hot summer had brought the first touches of autumn early here, too. More than that, she needed quiet, to be alone in her head for a while before facing them all again.

  'Are you sure you're all right, darling?' Christine asked suddenly and Lindsay, jerked out of her introspection, replied too quickly that of course she was, and there was a tight silence of the sort Christine had become only too used to before the last time Lindsay had gone away.

  She sometimes thought that having a conversation with her daughter was like unravelling an old jersey for reknitting. For row after row the stitches would streel smoothly away and then would come a snarl, the wool would break off and have to be tied together again. Christine's family had been poor and she had too many memories of having to wear reknit jerseys, the wrong side full of knots which invariably worked through to the front, to be comfortable with the analogy.

  Lindsay sat on her bed, feeling suspended, floating. Her luggage was still unpacked, dumped on the floor, reminding her of another time she'd been here, alone in her room with her suitcase packed.

  A horrible time. It had nearly been too much for her, the misery had threatened to take her over, so that she had no will of her own. She had thought, hopelessly: my life's out of control. Not to be in control of yourself and your actions was just about the worst scenario she could imagine. Perhaps she ought never to have gone away, alone. She'd always been like a chameleon, taking on the colour of her surroundings. In London, in her dreary and depressing little flat, dark and unacceptable ideas took possession of her. It was only through her music, by throwing herself into her studies, that she had kept sane, but here in this lovely, light-filled house she felt boundless peace, a renewal of energy and a possibility that the future might actually have something in store for her. Italy had helped her to get herself together again, the last dark months were over ... One hurdle was already over, the most difficult: Christine, who always seemed to see right through her, right to the bone. Now there was only Matthew, who was all right, no need to worry about him. And Jake, who was the nearest she'd yet found to a father.

  She picked up her lute and strummed a desultory chord or two, breathing deeply until she was calm enough to go downstairs.

  But still she hesitated. And presently, she found herself reluctantly reaching out for the morocco box on her dressing table where she kept her small collection of 'real' jewellery, the Victorian pieces she loved, all of them presents: the turquoise necklace from her mother, the delicate gold and seed pearl cluster ring Nigel had given her for her eighteenth birthday, the hair brooch and the pretty pair of tiny Victorian coral drop earrings from Jake. She scarcely ever had occasion to wear them, but they were there if ever she did. They were the only kinds of jewellery she really liked.

  Finally, she took a small flat package from her shoulder bag. After staring at it uneasily for several minutes, she pushed it into the box underneath the jewellery.

  From outside came the sound of a motorbike drawing up on the gravel by the front door. She jumped up to look out of the window. Cassie!

  In two minutes she was downstairs.

  Christine, taking a bowl of salad from the kitchen to the dining room, heard the cries of welcome and stopped to watch the two girls through the open dining room door. For a moment she felt a stab of jealousy. How long was it since Lindsay had been so forthcoming with her? What was it about this strong, stocky girl with her smouldering dark eyes, her mass of black hair and, let it be said, her sometimes undesirable manners, that so attracted Lindsay? She didn't care who she offended and seemed oblivious of the fact that Jake neither liked her nor made her welcome. She would certainly invite herself to supper, and Christine wasn't best pleased about that; apart from buying the pistachio ice-cream Lindsay doted on, she'd gone to some trouble to prepare a special meal. There was just enough, which woul
d mean eking out. Cassie ate a lot, as Christine knew to her cost, for she'd continued to come here in Lindsay's absence, having somehow formed an odd sort of friendship with Matthew as well. Friendship was all it was, Christine didn't believe there was anything more than that between them. Cassie Andreas was secretive; despite the fact that she'd been coming to the house on and off for several months, Christine knew virtually nothing about her, except that she was half Greek and that she and her mother had only recently come to live in England, and that Cassie now worked part time on the petrol pumps at the Esso station down the road – and most of this had been dragged out of either Matthew or Lindsay. It wouldn't have made her feel any better to learn that neither of them knew much more about Cassie than she did – the difference being that it didn't matter to them.

  Ostensibly watching Friday Night with Callaghan with Jake, after the two girls and Matthew had wedged themselves into Matt's car and roared away like 1920s bright young things, Christine found herself thinking again about the situation and growing tight-lipped. The time for finesse had gone. This was their house, hers and Jake's, Matthew and Lindsay were their children. As parents, she and Jake had a right to know who it was they brought home.

  'Good, isn't he?' Jake broke into her thoughts, lounging back and watching Tom Callaghan on the box, a suave figure with wavy, prematurely white hair and twinkling grey eyes. The show was very popular at the moment, the ratings were high. Jake liked to watch it because Callaghan was his old school chum, one of a once inseparable trio: Jake, Tom and Jake's cousin, Nigel Fontenoy. That was possibly why Jake wasn't as critical of the programme as Christine, but didn't explain why millions of others liked the show, too. Christine, however, wondered how long it would last. Callaghan probed serious issues, but with a smiling urbanity and an impression of such thorough investigation, that his viewers were left with the comfortable feeling of being absolved from the disagreeable necessity of having to do anything personally about it.

  Tonight, he had been interviewing victims of street crime – mugging, assault, rape, one survivor of a bomb attack. The rape victim was being asked whether she didn't honestly think it possible that some women did in fact provoke such attacks by the way they dressed. The woman answered shortly that no, she didn't, women had the right to dress as they wished, less than delighted with the hoary old question but looking Callaghan straight in the eye. The camera zoomed in on her tight red top, short leather skirt and long, long legs. 'I'm sure we all agree with you,' said Tom Callaghan sincerely, and launched smoothly into his wind-up speech and all-purpose smile.

  The credits began to roll and Christine went into the kitchen to make some tea. She'd long ago decided she didn't like Tom Callaghan.

  Arriving home that night after the show, Callaghan felt an immense weariness. He switched on the lamps and set the air-conditioning as high as it would go, threw his jacket across a chair back and took off his tie and his shoes. Then he poured two inches of Glenfiddich and made himself a ham sandwich. He could never eat before or immediately after the show, his stomach was too screwed up, but by now he was hungry. He could have eaten a good solid meal but his wife had recently walked out on him, and in any case, had never bothered to cook. He was nothing of a cook, himself.

  He sat on the sofa to eat his sandwich, allowing his gaze to rest for a while on the photograph on his desk, a thing he always did every time he came back home, as if by doing so he might will the subject of it to materialize. It was the only photograph in the room.

  The big picture window gave on to the river; the view was one of the best things about the flat, which was bare, almost monastic, as he preferred it, now that Joanna had taken with her all the fancy bits and pieces. What furnishings remained were plain but good, chosen by him. He had grown up with the second rate, but he knew a good thing when he saw it. He was careful over what he bought, canny with money. He had made – and was still making – plenty, but, as he well knew and heeded, there were fashions in celebrities, as in anything else. Nothing lasted.

  He sipped his whisky and slowly he began to relax. The show took more out of him every time. You had to be alert and on your toes the whole time, to think fast, though he was naturally a quick and agile thinker, as journalists have to be. In his game, you couldn't afford to miss a trick, you could allow yourself to forget nothing. That never bothered him, however. His memory was phenomenal. And there were some things no one ever forgot, or forgave. A ghost from the past laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, but it wasn't his runaway wife's. He felt a warning of the recurrent pain in his head, the one that had signalled trouble ever since he was a child, that he'd always been wise not to ignore. He shivered in the air-conditioning and thought it was a night to go to bed with a pill.

  Sleep didn't come easily, however. Tonight, as so often, he was haunted by memories from the past.

  His father, Rory Callaghan, had been an Irish Protestant dockworker of the Ian Paisley persuasion, who believed in hell fire and damnation, who had never forgiven himself his own lapse in marrying a foreigner, nor her either. Marietta had been a bright, volatile, clever woman, and though Italian, not religious, who could make his bigoted opinions look ridiculous, and frequently did as it became more and more apparent that their marriage was a disaster. Religion had not been the only source of their strife, however. There had been plenty more.

  Yet – for the sake of the child, Tom, it was said – they'd stuck together until Rory had died, mercifully for Marietta though not for Rory, of a stomach cancer. Marietta had come to England, found herself a series of jobs teaching Italian, the last of which had brought her to Lavenstock. And there Tom had stayed, too, working first on various local newspapers, going on to radio and graduating to television.

  His parents' marriage had been an explosive combination, and Tom's childhood hadn't been happy. The two strands of his inheritance still warred too much in him, irking him like the failure of his marriage, though he allowed none of it to inhibit him professionally. His public persona, and his private one, he had always kept as strictly apart as possible, for the very good reason that his private life contained a grief so huge it encompassed him entirely, one that could never be shared by anyone.

  He fell asleep, as he did most nights, his mind feeding on the great wrong that had been done, to dream, as always, of revenge.

  Jake was singing as he washed the breakfast dishes, his shirt sleeves rolled up. It was not an image associated with his tough, public one.

  The kitchen windows were steamy, bubbles flew as he squirted detergent into the hot water with abandon. He enjoyed washing up, he said it was therapeutic. He sang in the kitchen like other people sang in the bath, ritually, his not very tuneful baritone belting out songs from his youth, or from the latest show.

  'Yesterday. All my troubles seemed so far away –' he sang under his breath, off key, plunging muscular, hairy forearms into the sinkful of hot, soapy water.

  'You've put too much Fairy Liquid in,' Christine said, annoyed, picking up a teatowel and wiping the suds off a plate. 'And what's wrong with the dishwasher?'

  'Doesn't do the saucepans properly.'

  'You could wash up twenty times with that amount.'

  'If that's all you're bothered about, I'll buy you another bottle, for God's sake. And I believe in yes-ter-day.'

  'Jake –!'

  Last night they'd been lovers and this morning here they were, washing up and bickering like any old married couple, she thought, dispirited, as she turned to put a pile of plates away.

  'Hey, what's the matter?'

  She felt his arms round her waist from the back and leaned into him. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But Jake -'

  'Hm?' He nuzzled his chin into her shoulder.

  She turned herself round in his arms. 'Jake, we have to talk. Please don't try to put me off again.'

  'About?'

  'About Cassie. I think we ought to know more about her.' She had a sense of urgency about this that she didn't quite understand. 'I'd lik
e to meet her mother.'

  Jake was silent for a while. 'I need notice of that question,' he said eventually, 'though personally I don't see any point in it. If it's Matt you're worried about, forget it. He's more interested at the moment in long-legged blondes with nothing much between their ears than in Cassie Andreas.'

  'I'm not worried in that way! Not when their sole topic of conversation's compression ratios and overhead camshafts and differentials-'

  Jake gave a snort of laughter.

  'But I'd still like to meet that mother of hers.'

  'Leave it. Let things take their course.' Jake was terse.

  There was a warning there, if she had heeded it. 'Anyway, I'll bet you wouldn't – like to meet her, that is. It seems to me that one Andreas is more than enough.'

  4

  It was shady in the plot at the back of the brick house above the railway embankment, and quiet enough between trains, though they ran for most of the twenty-four hours, the big Intercity ones whooshing by every half hour, gone in an instant. Each time any one of them passed, the unsteady little house, erected by the railway with other, now derelict buildings at the turn of the century for some obscure and long-forgotten purpose, seemed to have moved one step nearer total extinction.

  Outside at the back, there were three old apple trees which, in a garden of this size, made the kitchen as dark as Hades, but they were already heavy with the early-ripened fruit of this hot summer. A great many apples had dropped off and lay rotting on the ground, giving off a boozy, cidery smell. The untended, uncut grass where Naomi walked was shiveringly sensuous and cool under her bare feet. They were long and elegant feet, brown but not very clean.

  She was wearing an ankle length granny print cotton skirt with a deep frill round the hem that she'd had for maybe twenty years, and an embroidered cotton blouse brought home from a far-off holiday in the Greek islands with that painter whose name she'd forgotten. She'd had a lot of style when she was younger and still had when she took the trouble, though she was beginning to do that less and less. Her hair was grey and untidy, tucked carelessly behind her ears. She had a long, aquiline face and she would never see forty again. It wasn't until you noticed her very beautiful grey eyes and the lovely bone structure that you realized why she had once been considered beautiful.