Mark was wrong. The lilo had been Gina’s idea. She had genuinely expected her father to like it when a lilo was so clearly a more suitable present for Isabel. Yet as Isabel eyed Mark circling on the water, casually regal on his litter of silver plastic, she reflected that after all Gina had been right. He did like his present. Not that Mark would be the one to tell her.
Isabel would watch their children bringing Mark gifts the way Crawford had long ago deposited decapitated rodents on their pillows with doe-eyed expectancy. Mark’s grownup children were anxious for a smile, even a nod, as he fastidiously unwrapped them. He always took a long time, careful not to tear the paper, folding it up neatly before turning to the object itself. But as he examined the offering, with a contemplative frown, all they ever got was a gruff thanks drowned out by her own vacuous cries of delight. How much more miserable would they have been if they had seen Mark after they had gone, communing with the Judge, brooding into his whiskey at the dining room table, as he teased out incontrovertible evidence of his children’s betrayal in the guise of a Liberty tie or a tan coloured Filofax of the softest Italian leather. The years had turned Mark into a well-dressed King Lear, who read only dissent in his children’s pathetic acts of love. Isabel had become adept at spinning a new take on events to render the day-to-day experience that makes up family history palatable. She would hurriedly weave a plausible explanation, even inventing nice things the children had said about Mark to comfort their disgruntled father or vice versa. In her late middle age she had constantly to wield this skilclass="underline"
‘He was absolutely thrilled with the tie, wears it all the time.’
‘Gina wanted to get you something special. Isn’t that reason enough?’
Yet Isabel had absorbed Mark’s dismal outlook. Perhaps he was right she decided, as Mark gracefully eddied in the middle of the pool, their time was up and their children were waiting in the wings to step into their shoes.
Love had nothing to do with it.
‘Mark, I’m getting a drink, do you want one?’ He was pretending to be asleep to stop her claiming the lilo. To keep her out. To such pettiness had their lives been distilled.
‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
‘Not for me.’ Fuck you!
‘I’m fine.’ With a flick, the lilo glided away.
‘When I come back, I want to lie on that,’ she warned.
He raised his head in mock surprise at her tone.
‘As you like. I have to go anyway.’
Mark must be going to Lewes after all. Despite her dismay Isabel refused to protest because it would be just the response he wanted. He knew perfectly well that Gina and Jon were arriving for lunch any minute, expecting him to be there. Indeed he had arranged it with Gina himself. Recently he had been acting perversely, leaving the house just before supper was served, going to bed early, setting off to the National Hospital in London where he still did consultancy, but instead driving into Brighton or Lewes. Or so he said when she’d told him she had rung the hospital and he wasn’t there. He didn’t care if he was caught out. Last Monday he had said he was working in his study, but when she had stuck her head round the door to tell him she was going out, he hadn’t been there. His car was still on the drive, but there was no sign of him. That afternoon Isabel had suddenly been reminded of herself as a young woman looking for Eleanor who had constantly concealed herself behind curtains, inside cupboards and under beds when she was wanted for anything. And on bad days Isabel’s memory would burrow even deeper to another search, one that most of the time she succeeded in forgetting about.
Two weeks ago, as she had stood by Mark’s immaculately tidy desk, careful not to touch anything because he laid tiny traps and would know if even a stapler had been moved, Isabel had found herself wondering if Mark was hiding from her. Despite the empty room, she had fancied she could hear breathing and had swept aside the curtain to see if he was standing stock-still behind it.
Isabel had once dreaded that Mark would end up like his father, but she had never really believed it possible. As a young man, Mark had been so different from the grouchy old codger who got pleasure issuing death sentences; she had been confident Mark would always be cheerful and charming. But once they were married things had changed and now Mark was every inch that grouchy old codger. Isabel smiled bitterly at this description as she crossed the garden to get her drink. She had managed the Judge. She would go on managing Mark.
The lawn had been mowed the day before. It was cut close like a carpet and was pleasingly springy under her bare feet. That was one thing: the garden looked the best it ever had.
Flowers were mere pixels in Isabel’s grand design. The Mondrian bed, the heady lavender borders, her small patch of wild meadow, and the sculpted busts she had made in her pottery class and mounted on red brick plinths in surprise places all created an enchanted space. She had resisted topiary, to the dismay of Toby, the new young gardener, who had done a course. Hedges were only boundaries, delineating each area and leading the visitor on to the next. A tall beech hedge framed the Rose Garden on one side and on the other, as well as the lawn with Uncle Jack’s tree. The swimming pool had been her achievement. She had reclaimed the meadow behind the house, where Gina had planned to graze the horse she never got. Mark hadn’t wanted the pooclass="underline"
‘In this bloody climate, you’ll have six days’ use each year. It’s a crazy expense.’
‘Six days is better than nothing. It’ll be more than that anyway.’
‘The kids have grown up, what’s the point?’
‘They still like swimming. I like swimming. And we might have grandchildren.’
Of course he had relented and as with the lilo Mark now used the pool more than anyone. Ten white plastic loungers that Jon had foisted on them were crowded around the edge. A semi-circular set of blue and white tiled steps led into the shallow end. To one side of the pool stood a brick-built barbecue used only when Jon came, sleeves rolled up and tongs rattling at the ready. Mark didn’t ‘do’ barbecues. Large tubs brimming with bright flowers were placed along a gravel path bordered with railway sleepers that wound around the side of the garage to meet the old path along the side of the house, skirted the lawn and led eventually up to the back door.
A trellis, thickly woven with honeysuckle, was meant to screen the garages and Judge’s workshop from the pool, but the honeysuckle hadn’t yet taken off so Isabel tried to ignore the grimy stucco beyond. Mark had balked at building a brick wall between the pool and the garage and the cost had been too high for Isabel to argue. They had already spent a fortune on CCTV cameras posted high enough to cover the house and the garden. These were filled with real tapes, which Mark indexed and stored downstairs in the basement in a room next to his father’s trial transcripts. It had been Isabel’s idea, after a burglary ten years ago. Mark had quickly become enthusiastic, constantly checking to confirm the cameras were working and upgrading them regularly. Isabel had come to hate them. Sensors caught the slightest movement and directed the lenses accordingly. They eyed her as she dead-headed roses, cut flowers for the dining room or smoothed sun tan cream in upward strokes along her legs and across her stomach. If she homed in, she could hear the whirr as the camera swivelled, like the Judge’s eyes, following her wherever she went. Now Mark could spy on her even when he was in London. The growing library of tapes formed a staccato black and white film diary of the house. Hours and hours of brickwork, portico and lintel interrupted by strobe-puppets jerking through the garden, in and out the doors like characters in a Swiss clock. The only person who watched these interminable silent comedies was Kathleen Howland, the woman in the cottage next door to the village stores, who was still searching for her daughter after some thirty years and who many said had gone mad.