Almost a crime, p.31
Almost a Crime, page 31
When she came back, he was following Gideon out of the door.
‘He’s going to bowl for me,’ said Gideon.
‘Gideon, Mr Bingham hasn’t come all this way to be dragged straight into a game of cricket.’
‘It’s not a game, it’s just so I can practise my batting. And he said to call him Gabriel.’
Gabriel Bingham’s eyes met Octavia’s over Gideon’s head. He smiled at her, then turned and followed Gideon out into the garden.
‘That was very kind of you,’ she said quite a lot later, as they sat drinking tea.
‘Not kind at all. I love cricket. Played for my school.’
‘Did you?’ said Gideon, his eyes shining.
‘Yup. First Eleven, actually.’
‘Golly.’
‘My finest hour was when we beat – well, another school, and I made eighty-nine, not out.’
‘Which other school?’
‘Harrow. Not hard to beat, actually.’
‘And where did you go to school?’ said Gideon
‘Er, Winchester,’ said Gabriel Bingham, avoiding Octavia’s eye.
‘Winchester and Harrow. What a very egalitarian occasion it must have been,’ said Octavia mildly. But she smiled at him; he smiled back.
‘I’m going to Winchester, I hope,’ said Gideon. ‘You have to be clever to go there, though. What’s your job?’
‘I’m an MP.’
‘Are you? Our daddy knows lots of MPs. Have you met him?’
‘No.’
‘Mummy, can I fill the paddling pool? It’s so hot,’ said Poppy. ‘Minty’d like that.’
‘She might not,’ said Gideon.
‘Of course she would.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Gideon, stop it,’ said Octavia, wearily. ‘I agree with Poppy, Minty probably would like it very much. Now go and help Poppy get the pool out and fill it, would you?’
‘But, Mum—’
‘Gideon. I mean it. Otherwise, no hamburger on the way back to London.’
‘I can see you’re a very harsh mother,’ said Gabriel Bingham.
‘I’m quite strict. Actually,’ said Octavia.
‘Well, they’re very nice children. And this is a very nice place you’ve got here.’
He looked round; they were sitting on a small paved area outside the kitchen door, set with a wooden table and chairs, and marked out by a trellis covered in climbing roses and honeysuckle. In front of them was the daisy-covered lawn, bounded by a thick hawthorn hedge, and beyond that the rolling, tree-studded Somerset landscape.
‘And nice village? Friendly? Do they approve of you?’
‘I think so. I mean, we do try to join in.’
‘Go to the fête, use the shop, all that sort of thing? Very commendable.’ His eyes were amused, but there was an edge to his voice.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘it’s very easy for you to sneer. I might tell you that this cottage had been empty for three years when we bought it, it was derelict, so—’
‘Calm down,’ he said, smiling. ‘My word, you’re touchy. I was only teasing you. I’m sure the village are very fortunate to have you here. Anyway, where is the husband? I’m beginning to think he doesn’t exist.’
‘He’s working. In London.’
‘I see. Do you often come down here on your own?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said quickly, ‘quite often.’
‘I see.’
There was a silence; then she said, ‘How did you know where I was, anyway?’
‘I asked the saintly Mrs David.’
‘It was very kind of you.’ She felt disproportionately touched; her life had not contained a great deal of kindness lately.
‘Well, I’m quite a kindly chap. On the whole. I don’t really like upsetting people.’
‘Actually,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘it wasn’t only you that upset me. I’d had a hard week.’
‘And what constitutes a hard week to you? Don’t look at me like that, I really want to know. Too many lunches? Too few grateful clients? Bad traffic on the M4?’
The treacherous tears stung at Octavia’s eyes again; she blinked furiously, stirred some sugar into her tea.
‘Mummy! Minty’s nearly swimming.’ Poppy stood in front of them, beaming, breathing heavily. ‘On her tummy, properly, arms and legs together. Caroline said she’d been teaching her.’
‘Who’s Caroline?’
‘Our nanny. She’s very nice. You might have met her, but she’s gone away this weekend. Gideon, stop that. Stop it!’ Poppy ran off.
‘Ah, another hardship,’ said Gabriel Bingham lightly, ‘no staff.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ said Octavia. Her voice shook. ‘What have I done to you, why do you have to be so – so snide all the time?’
‘Look.’ He put his hand on her arm. She pulled it away.
‘Don’t! Don’t touch me.’
‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’ he said. ‘Oh, dear. I was only teasing you. Again. How very sensitive you are, Mrs Fleming.’
‘And don’t call me Mrs Fleming!’
‘I thought you didn’t like me calling you Octavia?’
‘I don’t care what you call me,’ she said, and burst into tears.
He was very nice, very calm. He moved into the chair next to her, gave her a handkerchief, poured her another cup of tea, added two spoons of sugar.
‘Here,’ he said gently, ‘drink this.’
‘I don’t want it,’ she said, blowing her nose furiously.
‘It will do you good. My nanny always said sweet tea cured what ailed you. There, I’ve done it now. Telling you I had a nanny. Does that make you feel better, knowing what a hypocrite I am?’
‘A bit,’ she said, smiling reluctantly through her tears.
‘I’d rather it didn’t get all over the House. Don’t tell your husband.’
‘I don’t tell him anything at all,’ she said, ‘at the moment.’ And then froze, staring at him in alarm. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his untidy face very gentle. ‘If you don’t tell about my nanny, I won’t tell about your husband. Promise. Bad patch? No, sorry, shouldn’t have asked. Ignore the question.’
‘No, it’s all right. And you could say that, yes.’
‘Marriage, as far as I can see, consists of one large bad patch, interspersed by a few very small good ones. Would you care to comment on that, Mrs Fleming?’
‘Is that why you’re not married?’ she said.
‘Partly. Probably more because no one would marry me.’
‘So you don’t have a fiancée? Putative or otherwise?’
‘No, I don’t. She’s just given me my marching orders, wants to marry someone else, much nicer and more convenient than I am. Doesn’t keep rushing off to London every five minutes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, it’s all right. I think we both knew it was over months ago. Just jogging along, for the sake of convenience.’
‘Specially for you,’ she said briskly.
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, I mean, you need to have someone, don’t you? In your business? Otherwise people think you’re . . .’
‘Gay? That wasn’t why I went out with her,’ he said slowly, and his face was less friendly now. ‘You seem to view me as a bigtime hypocrite, which is rather a shame. I felt we were becoming friends. I’m not sure that’s going to be the case after all.’
‘Mr Bingham – Gabriel – I really didn’t mean . . .’ She felt panicky suddenly, and cold. It had been a foul and insensitive thing to say to someone who had gone out of his way to be kind and friendly to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, rather helplessly. ‘It was tactless of me.’
‘Yes, it was,’ he said, standing up, smiling down at her rather coolly. ‘Anyway, I must go. It’s been a very pleasant afternoon. Goodbye, Mrs Fleming.’
‘Are you going?’ said Gideon, running over to them. ‘That’s a shame – I wanted to ask you about my bowling.’
‘Sorry. Work to do. Nice to meet you, Gideon, I’m sure you’ll make a fine batsman. For Winchester or wherever else you go. ’Bye, Poppy.’
And he was gone, striding across the lawn towards the gate and his rather battered old Golf, parked just outside it.
Octavia watched him go, feeling very sick.
‘He’s really nice,’ said Poppy.
‘Yes,’ Octavia said, and heard her own voice, rather sad, ‘yes, I think he is really nice.’
‘Louise, are you sure you shouldn’t see the doctor?’
It was early on Monday morning; Louise had gone into the lavatory to be sick three times already, had crawled back into bed and lain there shivering, resisting any attempt to be comforted.
Every time Sandy looked at Louise, he felt more afraid: a deep gnawing fear that logic tried desperately to deny. She looked like this, was ill like this, only when she was pregnant; but pregnancy, he had been assured, was a total impossibility. He had had the vasectomy over two years ago; he had had tests done, his sperm count, the doctor had cheerfully assured him, was zilch. He had been unsure about having it done, had thought in those first few months that perhaps one day Louise might feel strong enough to have another child. But he had done it for her because he loved her so much, loved her in spite of her dark moods, her impatience with him, the fear that she no longer loved him at all . . .
She looked at him now, her head turned to him on the pillows, her great blue eyes dark and shadowed with misery, and seemed genuinely puzzled at the question.
‘Why should I see a doctor?’
‘Darling, you keep being sick, you’ve lost weight, you’re not sleeping, it can’t be – I mean, surely it can’t . . .’
‘Can’t be what?’ she said sharply, and afraid of confronting her, confronting himself with the awful words, he said feebly, ‘Can’t be all grief.’
‘Of course it’s grief, Sandy,’ she said and started to cry again, fierce angry tears. ‘Of course it is. I’ve lost my mother. She’s died. She’s dead, gone. I shall never see her again. How can you be so insensitive as to think that isn’t enough to make me ill, how can you?’
Sandy got up in silence, dressed and walked out of the room and out of the house. It was exactly like the time after Juliet had died, when Louise wouldn’t let him near her, physically or emotionally, warded him away from her by the sheer force of her pain; there was nothing he could do but keep away from her. And try not to feel so wretchedly afraid.
‘Thanks a lot!’ Tom’s voice was shaking with rage.
‘What?’
‘Telling Lauren Bartlett I wasn’t around on Sunday. When you knew she had a contact for me, when you know how desperate we are. Jesus, Octavia. You, I, the children, we’ll all suffer if Fleming Cotterill go down. We’re on a fucking knife edge, don’t you understand?’
‘Tom, if I might interrupt this torrent of abuse just for a moment,’ said Octavia, ‘I did try to get hold of you on Friday. Actually. To tell you about the lunch at the Bartletts’, to tell you Lauren had a contact for you. I was quite prepared to go. And where were you? Not with Bob Macintosh in Birmingham, as Barbara Dawson informed me, but on some mysterious assignation which nobody knew about. Presumably with your mistress. With whom, it seems, you’re still involved. Well, you know, it’s funny, Tom, but after that I didn’t feel able to continue with arranging networking opportunities for you. So sorry.’
Octavia stood in the vast space of the Central Lobby at the House of Commons, feeling absurdly nervous. It was crowded with a huge assortment of people: parties of tourists and rather weary-looking people wearing identity badges, clearly part of the workforce, scurrying through, holding sheaves of paper and files; rather less weary-looking people, walking more slowly, often in twos or threes, heads together, the members of parliament themselves – she recognised several of them, Austin Mitchell, Harriet Harman, Virginia Bottomley, and the Earl of Longford, looking too old to be alive at all, standing courteously back to allow a group of schoolchildren through; and the elaborately dressed doorkeepers, in their white tie and tails uniform. The noise level in the great echoing space, the hum of voices, the occasional announcement (totally unintelligible) over a loudspeaker, the calls of greeting, was extremely high. The whole place wore an air of total disorder, she thought, more reminiscent of some huge marketplace or moneychangers’ temple than the seat of government of one of the leading countries in the world.
Julie Springer had been in a meeting all morning; when she got back to her office, her voice mail told her to ring the features department at the Independent. Good. It would be that nice Diana Davenport again, probably phoning to check some details.
‘Hi,’ she said to the person who answered the phone, ‘this is Julie Springer. Could I speak to Diana Davenport?’
‘No Diana Davenport here,’ said the voice.
‘Oh. Well, maybe she’s freelance. Could I speak to someone else, then? I did have a message to call you.’
‘Who is it?’ said the voice, slightly impatiently.
‘Julie Springer. From Fleming Cotterill.’
‘Just a minute. Hold on.’
A long silence. Then, ‘Yes, apparently it’s about your letter. To this Davenport person. Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve never heard of her. Probably a freelance trying to pull one on you. They do it all the time. We have no feature planned about lobby shops, sorry. Shall I send the list back or what?’
‘Oh, no, don’t,’ said Julie. The oldest trick in the book for freelancers getting information, and she hadn’t spotted it. Now she looked a fool to the Indie, and if they found out at Fleming Cotterill – well, there was no reason why they should. ‘No, just bin it.’
‘Peace offering,’ said Octavia. She held out a long narrow box. ‘It’s not vintage, but it is—’
‘Let me guess. Bollinger. Mrs Fleming! How very kind. And to take time out of your extremely busy schedule.’ The voice had an edge to it, but the eyes, moving over her face slowly, were soft, thoughtful.
‘I felt I owed it to you,’ she said quickly, feeling the wretched easy flush rising from her neck. ‘I am so sorry about the other day. What I said.’ She realised the messenger at the desk was watching her with some amusement; Gabriel Bingham realised it too.
‘About my being gay, you mean?’ he said loudly. The messenger glanced at him involuntarily, then returned to a intense study of his telephone directory. ‘Honestly, I didn’t mind. I’ve come to terms with it now. It’s fine. If you can live with it, so can I.’
Oh—’ She turned away, crossly, half hurt still.
He caught her by the shoulder, pulled her round to him, smiled down at her. ‘Don’t be silly. I really do appreciate your coming. Look, are you free for lunch? Or does a table full of power-dressed women await your arrival at the Ritz?’
‘I never lunch at the Ritz,’ she said, and then realised how absurd that sounded and smiled reluctantly.
‘Well, are you awaited anywhere else?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Then have lunch with me? We can go up to the press dining room, I have a pass. The only thing is I must be in the chamber by three.’
‘No, really, I have to get back to my office. I’ve a meeting at two thirty.’
‘It’s only a quarter to one. Where’s your office?’
‘South Ken,’ she said, realising too late how predictable that must sound too.
He grinned at her. ‘Of course. Well, what about a drink? On our famous terrace? Go on, Mrs Fleming, you can’t come all this way and not let me give you at least something to wash down the humble pie. Just a small glass of mineral water. That’s what you ladies who lunch drink, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not a lady who lunches,’ she said irritably.
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were. Well, anyway, you must allow the occasional drop of something to pass your lips. Clearly nothing solid, you are so admirably slim. Come on. Just a quiet one, as they say.’
She hesitated, then, ‘Yes, all right. That would be very nice.’
‘Marvellous. And we can discuss my sexual predilections further there.’
She smiled with pleasure as they came on to the famously lovely terrace, the river flowing surprisingly far beneath them, Westminster Bridge arching to their left.
‘There’s a table there, look. Grab it quickly. Busy day today.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said irritably. ‘Debate about taxation, isn’t there? And the IMF. That’s why I came today. I thought you were fairly likely to be here.’
‘Good Lord,’ he said, studying her, ‘you must have been very keen to apprehend me.’
‘Is there anything wrong with that?’
‘No, of course not. Don’t start getting huffy. Try this. It should be very nice. Pouilly-Fuissé. I am not entirely unaware of life’s more sophisticated pleasures, you see. They keep a very good cellar here. The best in England, some say.’
‘It’s lovely,’ she said, sipping it. She met his eyes; he smiled at her, and she felt that smile, felt it move through her, warm, intriguing.
‘It was very sweet of you to come,’ he said, and the word was unexpected somehow. ‘I really do appreciate it.’
‘I felt so bad. It was a foul thing to say.’
‘Well, I’ve said some fairly foul ones to you. So we’re quits.’
‘I hope so.’
There was a silence; she looked at him. He was wearing a suit; it wasn’t at all a good suit. Her eye, trained by Tom’s obsessive stylishness, placed it as very mass-market indeed, Principles probably, and under it he wore a very unsuitable shirt, light woollen check, with a striped, rather battered tie, and with the navy suit he wore brown Hush Puppies. He was a sartorial nightmare; perversely she liked him for it.
‘What are you thinking?’ he said, looking at her.
‘Oh, nothing really.’
‘Yes, you were. Come on.’
‘I was thinking about your clothes,’ she said, ‘actually. That I hadn’t seen you in a suit before.’
