Almost a crime, p.66
Almost a Crime, page 66
Fiona Michael saw Octavia out of her office after an hour, and went over to the window, watched her walking slowly down the street. She liked her; but she felt it was unlikely she’d be handling her divorce. If ever a woman was still in love with her husband, it was Octavia Fleming.
It was all arranged: Louise was to come home on Sunday. Every time he thought about it, Sandy felt ill. He spent a long time on Friday evening cleaning the house, making up the bed in the spare room – there was no way he could even contemplate having Louise sleeping with him – putting flowers in their own room for her.
He could cope with it; of course he could. And it wasn’t for ever after all.
‘Tom, I want to talk to you.’
Tom looked at her over the financial section of The Times. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-drunk bottle of chardonnay in front of him; he looked tired, but extremely cheerful. ‘Sure. Want some of this?’
‘No. No, thank you. I wouldn’t mind some fruit juice though.’
‘Fine. Sit down, you look tired.’
‘I don’t feel tired,’ said Octavia coolly.
‘Good.’
‘I expect you’re pleased about the takeover. Or rather that there wasn’t one.’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. Did your father call you about it?’
‘No. I haven’t heard from him. I just read it in the papers. Is there any post?’
‘Over there.’
He had his back to her, was standing at the fridge. She flicked through the letters; there was one from Barbados. Nicholas Greenidge. He said he’d write about the mysterious money in the trust fund.
Dear Octavia
I have looked into the matter of the monies in your BVI trust fund, and it would appear that two payments of ten thousand dollars each were made over the course of the past six weeks. There is no record of where they came from. A nice surprise for you, perhaps! I have spoken to your father about the house and everything is in order, but no doubt he will have told you that.
So glad you enjoyed your week with us.
Come back soon.
Nicholas.
‘How extraordinary,’ said Octavia.
‘What’s that?’
‘Well – someone has paid twenty thousand American dollars, that’s – God, that’s about fifteen thousand pounds, into the BVI trust fund. The one my father set up for me. Ages ago. It’s rather odd. I mean, Daddy didn’t put the money in. I asked him. So who . . .’
‘Very odd,’ said Tom. ‘I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you.’
There was something in his voice, in his attitude, that made her suddenly suspicious.
‘Tom?’
‘Yes, Octavia?’
‘Tom – you don’t know anything about this, do you? About the money? You do? Who put it there? What’s it got to do with you?’
‘I put it there,’ he said quietly.
‘You? But why, how?’
‘I wanted you to have a bit of money that would be safely yours,’ he said finally. ‘If I’d gone bankrupt, you’d have lost an awful lot as well.’
‘But you didn’t have any money! You told me you were absolutely desperate.’
‘I know. But I cashed in a couple of insurance policies, paid the money into the trust fund. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do for you. I thought it was much better you had it than the bailiffs or whoever.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She felt absurdly distressed; she wasn’t sure why. Certainly disturbed. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You weren’t awfully keen on talking to me at the time,’ he said briefly. ‘Anyway, there was arguably some virtue in your not knowing. If the crunch had actually come.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said again. ‘Well, I’m very – very grateful. Thank you.’
‘That’s all right. In the event, touch wood, you didn’t need it. I might even take it back.’ He smiled at her, went back to the paper.
‘Yes. Yes, of course you must.’
And then she’d take it back again; when the divorce settlement went through. She felt very confused suddenly; confused and upset.
‘I think I’ll go and see Minty,’ she said.
‘Yes, do. She was wailing just now.’
Halfway up the stairs, she remembered she’d been going to tell him about the divorce. Well, it could wait. A bit longer wouldn’t hurt.
‘Hi, Mum!’
Marianne looked up. In front of her, framed in the doorway of her sitting room, stood a tall, immensely thin figure, dressed in ragged jeans and a tie-dyed shirt. Its rather long straight hair was streaked ash blond and it was extremely tanned and rather dirty looking. But through the tan and the dirt shone a wide, joyful grin showing a set of unmistakably American-nurtured teeth.
‘Marc! Oh, my darling!’
She flew at him, hugging him and kissing him; found she was crying, stood back, wiping her eyes, laughing at the same time.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘easy, Mum. Take your tie off.’ It was one of his favourite expressions.
‘But what are you doing here? I thought you were in the Himalayas.’
‘I was. But I wanted a bath and some English grub. Wanted to see you as well, of course, and I thought I’d give you a surprise.’
‘Well, you certainly did that. Oh, I’m so pleased to see you, you can’t imagine, it’s too good to be true . . .’
Later, sitting watching him as he devoured a huge plateful of chicken and chips and an even huger one of strawberries and ice cream, she said, ‘If someone had said to me this evening I could have anything in the world, I’d have said I wanted you to come home.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ he said, grinning at her again. ‘I didn’t think you’d be exactly upset. But I was afraid you might be with old Felix.’
‘Er – no,’ said Marianne. ‘Not tonight. Or any other night, for that matter.’
‘Yeah? All washed up? I can’t pretend I’m too upset,’ he said, ‘but I’m sorry if you are.’
‘Thank you,’ said Marianne. ‘I am. Very.’
Octavia went down to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. Tom was there, reading the papers. She looked at him slightly warily.
‘What are your plans for the evening?’ he said politely.
‘I was going to work, but—’ She hesitated. It was actually a very good time: the twins still away, it would be easy to talk, get the initial and inevitable unpleasantness over, make plans.
‘But what?’
‘Well, I do want to – to talk to you about something.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. I . . .’
‘I wondered if it would be all right if I went out this evening.’ Caroline had come into the kitchen, wearing her smarter clothes and a slightly aggressive expression.
‘Caroline, of course you must go.’ Octavia smiled at her. ‘And why don’t you take tomorrow off as well?’
‘I did actually agree with you that I should take the whole weekend anyway,’ said Caroline. ‘Perhaps you’d forgotten.’
‘Oh, dear. Yes, obviously I had.’
‘As you’ve been away, and—’
‘Yes, yes, Caroline, of course. Do you want to leave now for the weekend?’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said Caroline. ‘I had hoped to, as a matter of fact, but—’
‘Caroline, I was here,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve been here since five. You could easily have gone, you should have asked.’
‘I know you were here,’ said Caroline graciously, ‘but Minty was very upset. Perhaps you didn’t notice.’
‘Caroline, of course I noticed. But I didn’t want to interfere.’
‘Well, I assumed that must be the reason. That you didn’t come up. Anyway, it was her mother she really wanted – needed. As I said to you, Octavia, she’s still very unsettled from your being away. It was a pity you had to go straight back to work, a whole day at home with her—’
‘Yes, I realise that, Caroline. But I had a great deal of work to do in the office. And of course we did have Sunday together.’
‘I suppose so. And the twins will be back tomorrow and they always cheer her up. Hopefully a family weekend will settle her. And them. I expect they will have missed you, too. I presume there won’t be a proper family holiday this summer?’
‘Not now, I’m afraid,’ said Tom briskly, ‘as it’s September the first on Sunday. Summer’s over, as well as the opportunity.’
‘Well, at least the twins have had a proper break. We all need one, don’t we?’
‘We do, Caroline,’ said Octavia. ‘And that reminds me, we must arrange your holiday. Late September, you usually like, don’t you?’ (Best to get that over before the inevitable turmoil of the divorce, she thought.)
‘I do, yes. Well, I must go, I was hoping to catch the cinema, but it’s a bit late now.’
‘Oh, not really,’ said Tom. ‘Only just after eight. Do you want me to run you down, save you parking?’
‘No, no, it’s quite all right. I think, actually, I might just go for a walk down to Kensington Gardens, it’s such a beautiful evening.’
‘Fine. ’Bye, Caroline.’
As the front door closed finally behind her, Octavia looked at Tom. He was a rather odd colour; he looked back at her, exhaled loudly and started laughing.
‘God,’ he said, ‘that was a tough one. Six of the best, wouldn’t you say?’
‘A dozen, more like it,’ said Octavia. She started to laugh as well. ‘Look at the pair of us, sitting here, feet together, hands folded, in ticked-off mode. I just didn’t dare even look in your direction when she started about the twins missing us. I wish!’
‘Actually,’ said Tom, ‘the most priceless moment was when she said I didn’t care about Minty crying.’
‘Did she say that?’
‘Not in so many words. But it was printed out on the wall. In twenty-four-point letters.’
‘Well, we’d better write a hundred lines,’ said Octavia, still laughing. ‘“We must not neglect our children.”’
‘Go on, then. I dare you. And leave it out on the table.’
‘I’m not going to. You do it.’
He got up, fetched some paper and a pen, sat down again next to her and started writing.
‘Tom, she’ll leave! You’re not to. Tom, don’t . . .’
She was leaning just slightly against him, looking at what he was writing, still laughing; relaxed, not watchful of herself, of what she was doing. ‘Here, you need two pens. Then you can write two lines at a time.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, that’s what I used to do.’
‘Octavia, I’ve known you all these years, and I had no idea you ever did anything naughty to write lines about.’
‘Of course I did.’
‘What was the worst?’
‘Oh, God. It was terrible. It was at my day school. Well, me and my friend—’
‘I didn’t think you had any friends. I thought everyone hated you.’
‘I had one. Horrid girl, fat like me. We used to climb up on each other’s shoulders in the lavatory, and look over the wall down on the girl in the next one. It was so funny, such fun.’
‘How disgraceful. I’m appalled.’
‘Anyway, one day, it was a prefect. She’d just pulled down her pants and was settling her great white bum on the seat when I giggled. She looked up, and – well, that was it. We had to write a hundred lines. “I must not look at people sitting on the lavatory.” Even though I was a bit scared, I still giggled every single line.’
‘Well, this is a new facet of you, I must say. Dear, oh dear. I’m married to a voyeur. I had no idea.’
‘Sorry, I should have told you before.’
And then he looked down at her, suddenly serious and said, ‘It’s nice to see you laughing. So nice . . .’
And she realised how closely she was sitting to him, and pulled just very slightly away, realised also that it was actually quite difficult to do so, that she didn’t want to lose the warmth and the comfort. And then he leaned towards her and kissed her and, eased by laughter, she did not immediately pull away. And when she did, she realised that there was the stillness in him again, the intense, hungry stillness; and, somehow, some strange treacherous piece of desire stirred in her in return, and it was as if her mouth, and indeed her body, did not in any way belong to her, and she watched it, felt it even, observed her mouth returning the kiss, gently at first, then more urgently, and his mouth became harder, more probing on hers: and she felt the probe echoed deep within her body, warm, pushing, urging through her; and even as she knew she mustn’t do it, that it was lethal, a betrayal of her very self, she put her arms round his neck and pulled his face down to hers and kissed him harder; and when he pulled back just a very little, and said, ‘Upstairs, then?’ she saw his eyes on her very brilliant, and perhaps, yes, yes, there were tears in them, and ‘Yes,’ she said, feeling her own eyes filling in sympathy, ‘yes.’ And then, dizzy with confusion, shocked at what she was doing, recognising the danger of it, even as she wanted him more than she could remember doing for a very long time, she took his hand and followed him upstairs.
As she pulled her clothes off – half amused at the haste, the urgency with which she was doing it – she knew that she must, she had, to stop – and knew that of course she couldn’t, that she was as helpless to resist the demands and commands of her body as she was a while later to stop the great surging rollercoaster of her orgasm. She lay there, quite out of control, moving, pushing, working with and round and on him, kissing him greedily, frantically, feeling his hands on her, taking them, guiding them to where she needed them to be, moving her own on him, remembering with her body as much as with her head how perfect, how driven, how controlled, sex with him could be. And as the lightness and the brightness began, as she fought towards it, pulled back again to prolong it, as she mounted finally the piercing jagged heights of pleasure, fell noisily grateful into the fluid ease beyond it, she heard him say, just before he came himself, ‘I love you,’ and realised properly then, a rush of panic interspersing the peace, what a horribly dangerous thing she had done . . .
CHAPTER 47
It had been a very beautiful day. Well, it was August, everyone said, albeit the very end of August: all the more unusual actually, everyone then said. August usually went out, along with the summer, in a great driving sheet of rain. It was a wonderful bonus, anyway; everyone agreed they should enjoy it.
In London, the Fleming family were in their garden, the twins rather over-confident and full of themselves at accomplishing their first holiday away from their parents, more full of energy even than usual, at one and the same time happy to be reunited with them and querulous at the loss of freedom, the pool, and several other children to play with. Minty, having recovered from her first intense joy at seeing them, was fractious and restless with the heat. Tom, cautiously relaxed, was cooking a barbecue; Octavia jumpy, wary, watched him and wondered and worried at how she could have allowed herself to do what she had done, how much it might affect the final outcome of her divorce petition, whether anyone actually needed to know about it, and when and how she was going to break the news of that divorce petition to Tom. For, of course, that was still what she wanted.
Louise Trelawny was packing, reflecting upon her escape from the Cloisters, now little more than twelve hours ahead, remembering with something approaching savage rage her final interview with Dr Brandon when he told her he thought she seemed so very much better – how could he think that, a doctor, how could he not see still how much she hurt, how angry she was – but grateful at the same time that he should think it. At least she would be away from this horrible place; at least she could begin to take her revenge. Indeed, in little more than a week, in eight days’ time, she would have taken it; or rather be in the very midst of the pleasure of taking it. Then she really would feel better.
Every so often she opened her bag, checked the zipped pocket, just to make sure it hadn’t fallen out. It was still there; she could go ahead.
Sandy Trelawny was sitting in the garden with Dickon and Megan and Pattie David, eating a very nice lasagne Pattie had cooked, and thinking this was the last time for many weeks, or even months, that he would be able to see her – or rather them – and that he would be feeling calm and at peace. Tomorrow he would be at home with Louise, trying to suppress his anger, his distaste, trying at the same time to care for her, because, until she was quite, quite better, there was nothing he could do to get away from her. Pattie had already said how much she would miss seeing him and Dickon, and that he must let her know if there was anything she could do to help over the next few weeks, but he knew there was no prospect even of seeing her, let alone her being able to help him.
But as they left, finally and reluctantly, he did allow himself to kiss her lightly – only on the cheek – and to say that he was more grateful than she would ever know for all her help, and that he hoped very much that he would see her and Megan again before too long.
He had thought he could say no more than that; but somehow, when she said, ‘You must be so much looking forward to having Louise back home,’ he heard his voice, harsh and raw, saying that actually, no, he wasn’t, not at all. Pattie then said (her pale face slightly pink) that it would obviously be a great strain for him, and he had actually been about to try and tell her that was not quite the reason, when Dickon ran up and said to come and see – Megan’s rabbit had just had babies.
And after that, there was no more opportunity and it was time to set out on the long drive home.
Lucilla Sanderson sat watching her friends the bats swooping through the twilight, and wondering what she should do next; she had phoned the Davids and they were coming to see her the next day, and she had also spoken to her MP, Gabriel Bingham, who seemed a very nice young man, and didn’t sound at all like a Socialist, but you never knew these days, look at Tony Blair. He had said there was very little that could be done, if planning permission had definitely been given, but that he had no idea if that was the case. If it was, he said, then the democratic process must take its course, and he very much hoped Mrs Sanderson was not going to take to living in the trees or in a burrow underground. This was intended as a joke, but Lucilla told him that that was precisely what she would do if and when the bulldozers arrived at Bartles Park.
